Food cooked and prepared right in front of customers can be a great attraction.
Not only stand alone and shopping centre fast chains are into it, but high end restaurants have embraced it.
Bringing the kitchen out into the open has fed our fascination with chefs on TV reality shows.
We now love observing everything that goes on.
Let’s look at 5 good reasons why an open kitchen works:
It creates a sense of theatre
The senses are heightened with the sounds, the smells, and the sights of cooking.
Customers are treated to the spectacle of preparing and cooking, to flames and steam, pounding, chopping, beating.
It’s entertainment.
Appetites can be stimulated in the process.
It’s a win for business owners to keep customers entertained and upsell items on their menu.
It’s a key space in the fitout
Placing a kitchen with a large mechanical extraction hood in a fitout is a challenge, but with some good, clever strategies and finishes designed into the space, the open kitchen can be the centrepoint.
With sight lines taken into account and clean, sleek materials, it’s the pivot point of the fitout.
It encourages safer food practices
How the food is prepared is under full view which gives customers confidence that health standards are kept.
An open plan can only work if it’s kept clean, so there’s always an air of assurance in safe food handling with the open kitchen model.
It can showcase the skills of the staff
Chefs and their support staff are highly proud of what they do and what they produce.
The open set-up provides a path to emphasise their skills in front of an audience and showcase the speed and pressure under which they work.
It also allows them to see the reactions of customers enjoying the food they’ve produced.
It can have everyone looking smart and capable
The open format is much about appearance, so because customers can see the kitchen staff working, being dressed in smart workwear, having spotless hygiene and model general behaviour is the go.
When a business has these things, it definitely speaks confidence.
Making the open kitchen a drawcard in a hospitality fitout will reap the rewards!
