Making Better Food At Home

As a restaurant owner, the holiday season is a great way to promote take-out and heat-at-home items. As people gather together with family members for holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, you can provide a number of meal and side options that are easy to purchase from your restaurant and serve up at home. As you prepare for the increase in holiday meals, you can consider purchasing restaurant equipment. These pieces of equipment can help you prepare, serve, and keep the meals fresh for customers. By choosing one or more of the options, you can make it a lot easier to serve your to-go items and keep up with the regular pace of your eat-in customers.

Soup Kettles

Warm soup is great for serving up for large holiday parties and family gatherings. You can easily prepare soup to go by purchasing large soup kettles for your restaurant. Having an extra kettle will allow you to make soup that is used exclusively for to-go orders. This allows you to set up a special soup-to-go order that includes multiple bowls, spoons, and side items like saltine crackers. The soup kettles can also be placed on display on front counters in your restaurant. This is an ideal way to promote the soups and serve quick cups to go without having to place an order back with the kitchen.

Banquet Carts

Having a lot of to-go meals prepared for the day can take up space in the kitchen. Having a separate space for to-go orders will make it easy to organize your kitchen and serve the to-go meals quickly. A banquet cart can provide this extra space. The large carts can be heated and set to exact temperatures so that food is served warm and fresh. The tall and vertical carts feature different rows that can be spaced out for different-sized pans. This allows you to hold meats, side dishes, and extras all within the same cart. When a holiday to-go order comes in, you can easily prepare the meal and package it in just a few minutes. A number of banquet carts also come with wheels and are mobile. This allows you to place the cart right next to a prep and cooking area during the mornings. As the meals are made, they can be placed right into the cart. Once the cart is full, it can be rolled out of the way and accessed as needed.

Food Shelf–Warmer Display Case

The best way to promote holiday heat-and-go meals is by showcasing the meals to customers. One of the easiest ways to do this is through a food shelf–warmer display case. These cases can showcase the meals that customers can pick up, take home, and serve for holiday gatherings. For example, you can display tubs of mashed potatoes right in the display case. When a customer requests mashed potatoes, it will be easy to take them right from the display case and have the customer pay for them. The warming elements can keep foods fresh, but there are also refrigerated options for foods that will get heated up at a later time.

Warming Drawers

Side dishes like vegetables, hot buns, and sauces require special treatment to ensure that they stay fresh. You do not want buns going hard, vegetables getting soggy, or sauces getting too watery. The best way to keep these items fresh and in the condition you want them is with warming drawers. The separate drawers allows you to separate breads from vegetables and have different settings for each one. Along with temperature controls, the warming drawers can help control humidity exposure to the food. A perfect balance of humidity prevents food from being too soggy or drying out.

As you plan out your holiday dining options, consider ways that these pieces of restaurant equipment can help your restaurant thrive and operate smoothly.