Your restaurant facilities and equipment are a part of the foundation that helps your restaurant run smoothly. A broken air conditioner can result in uncomfortable customers; malfunctioning kitchen equipment prevents your cooks from doing their best work. When faced with financial challenges the way many business owners are at this time, we know that taking care of the “nuts and bolts” is easy to overlook. While you may be tempted to put your maintenance plan on the chopping block when trimming your budget, try to remember that the investment is small when considering the many returns.
Believe it or not, spending on preventative maintenance can actually save you money! Most restaurants take a reactive approach to maintenance. They primarily focus on daily tasks like providing a clean facility, good meals and reliable service while restaurant equipment and systems that are working just fine are taken for granted, and maintenance only becomes a concern when something breaks. If you wait until something breaks before you have it serviced, then you’ve already spent more time and money than you would have if you kept to a regular maintenance plan.
In addition, equipment that’s well-cared-for lasts longer, requires fewer repairs, and when you do decide to trade-in or trade-up, it will fetch a higher resale price, giving you even more bang for your buck! Don’t forget that poorly maintained equipment also uses more energy which means higher utility costs for your business.
A proper maintenance plan means a safer place for your customers and your team. Food safety and compliance is hugely important for any restaurant. Failing an impromptu inspection can result in having your doors closed indefinitely, and with increased scrutiny due to COVID-19, health and safety is at the top of everyone’s mind. As the impact of the pandemic continues to ravage communities and threaten your business, the last thing you need to worry about is a food-borne illness due to a poorly functioning commercial refrigerator, or an accident in your kitchen due to poorly maintained equipment.
Your commercial kitchen equipment has a lot of responsibilities when it comes to safety; it cleans and sanitizes your dishes and cooking utensils, keeps food in the temperature safe zone, and when functioning properly, can limit the risk of fire hazards or grease spills. Regular maintenance (which includes sanitization, by the way) keeps your gadgets and gear doing what they are meant to, which means your customers and your teams stay safer.
Lastly, the better your equipment is maintained, the better-quality product your team can produce. If the tools a chef is using are faulty, there is only so much they can do. The fact is, weaker or ill-functioning equipment can slow down your entire operations (slow prep + slow cooking = slow service) and lead to potential lost sales due to a poor customer experience. Keeping a “well-oiled machine” can help you operate more efficiently and avoid service interruption when you’re already operating at reduced capacity.
The bottom line is that it’s more important than ever to make sure you’re investing your time and financial resources in all the right places. Until this pandemic is behind us, restaurant dining and operating experiences will continue to shift and change as the reality of Covid-19 brings heightened precautions to North Texas. Preventive restaurant maintenance assures that everything behind the scenes keeps working smoothly, from your HVAC systems to your kitchen equipment.
With all restaurants under extreme pressure, let the experts at Titan Air Solutions help! Our team provides quick, reliable services and specializes in commercial HVAC services such as refrigeration and freezers, AC & heating, kitchen hood systems, and cooking equipment. With flexible and competitive pricing, you never have to worry about surprise, overpriced invoices. To learn more, contact us today!
