Server access to the kitchen

[mrchris]

I'm being hired to manage the kitchen of a new restaurant and one of the issues(in my mind) that has come up with the restaurant design(being built from the ground up) is the access to the kitchen.  It's an 8 foot hallway that is 3'11" wide.  Coming out of the kitchen down this hallway you must turn a blind corner at the end to enter the bar area which is connected to the dining area.  That door is 4 feet wide.  I've told him this alley is too narrow and that the servers should have double doors.  Am I in the wrong?  He says it's the best he can do because to widen it would affect the bathroom area.

 

[kuan]

Why even have a door? I'd just take it out.

 

[titomike]

Mirror for the blind corner...
Batwing doors?

 

[mrchris]

What's a batwing door?  

 

[foodpump]

As someone who has a brother and his wife both registered architects, I have to say from experience they don't belong in designing a kitchen--dining room, kitchen NO.

Whatchaneed is a cold window, a hot window and a pass for dirty dishes.  Server access is great if you can wrangle it, but I've worked in many kitchens that were located in a basement and food/dishes were transported via elevator, or with pass-thru windows.

The best piece of advice I can give you is this:

Make a scale drawing of the space you are alloted, say 1" to 1' include windows, pillars/posts, doors etc., then make scaled pieces of paper furniture (range, fryer, hood, walk-in, etc) as well as pieces of paper people (figure on 36" for a typical worker.)  Don't forget to add the swing doors on fridges, doors, etc.

Now you get yourself a beer or two and play with that and see what works best......

 

[kuan]

 Don't forget to add the swing doors on fridges, doors, etc.
 

I second that.  Make sure you have plenty of room behind the swing doors.

 

[kyheirloomer]

Hey, FoodPump, how many people do you know that are 36 feet? You did say to scale it 1"=1'. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/surprised.gif

 

[gypsy2727]

You don't have to be an Architect to know there are "Code Violations" going on here