Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Kitchen design

[Dahako (Dahako]

Hi Robin!
 
I worked my way through college working in restaurant kitchens and have  
easily turned out 100 covers (dinners) in a night on a single 6-burner gas  
stove, 
two ovens, a well-planned mise en place area, a somewhat separate prep  area, 
and a couple of warmers. (With me, a sous chef, and a dishwasher in  the 
kitchen.)  In cohousing, you need to serve these dinners more or less  all at 
once, but I wouldn't think you'd need four stoves?  Did I misread  your message?
 
At EVC, we really like our Kenmore Elite wall ovens (2).  They work as  well 
as most any electric oven and they are designed cleverly for cleaning (the  
bottom of the oven pulls out).
 
Start talking to your fire marshal early in the design phase.  If you  scale 
up too much, you will have to install commercial grade ventilation and  fire 
suppression and it really drives up the cost.  It partially happened  here, and 
I think the stove set-up went at about $10K.  I kid you  not.
 
For a group that size, I'd include space and budget for some time- and  
energy-saving gadgets - two large slow cookers, a hefty rice cooker,  two large 
pancake griddles, and a microwave.
 
I come down on the side of getting both a residential dishwasher (steel  
inside is quieter and lower maintenance in the long term) and a 
high-temperature  
capable commercial dishwasher (small one - about 1 cycle every 4 minutes is  
plenty for the number of diners you're expecting).
 
Once you have an initial plan, don't lock down on it. I recommend  consulting 
one of the cohousing kitchen designers around.
 
Hope all is going well with you and yours.
 
Jessie Handforth Kome
Eastern Village Cohousing
Silver Spring, Maryland
"Where we have 56 cohousing units and 11 commercial live/work units.   We 
have two dinner club nights (7-20 households) and one all-community  potluck 
night weekly, a monthly (or so) pancake breakfast, and four or  five all 
community 
feasts and parties annually.  Plus private parties,  kids birthday parties, 
election night, Super Sunday, and random other  events.  We hate, despise, and 
loathe our stove, but the rest of the  kitchen works pretty well."