Unless your entire congregation is following a ‘raw food’ diet, chances are your kitchen will need some sort of cooking or heating appliance. Yet getting the right cooker for your kitchen – and your budget – can be complicated.
Steelplan’s expert consultants let us in on the top three questions they ask to find the perfect solution for clients:
1 – Who’s coming for dinner?
How many people need to be catered for at any one time? You may only have the odd charity event or bake sale outside of the usual coffee morning or friendly get together, but perhaps you’d like to start offering the space as a venue for hire. A degree of flexibility is always recommended, and there are a huge number of adaptable options available.
2 – What’s on the Menu?
Don’t worry, this isn’t MasterChef: we just want to know what sort of food your kitchen dishes up. If you plan on hiring the space for weddings, corporate banquets or other upmarket occasions, you might need to look at multiple ovens, a decent number of hobs and potentially some warming equipment, too.
If most of the food that will be served on the premises will be made off site – tray bakes and pre-prepared plates, for instances – you will probably only want a warming oven, with a few integrated hobs for heating soups and stews. There are a lot of combinations to consider, all of which our consultants can talk through with you during the design process.
3 – Who’s cooking?
If you’re lucky enough to have a resident chef, or regularly rent your premises out to professional caterers, you might want to consider commercial-level cooking appliances. If it’s mostly used by your flower arranging committee or local PTA, a complicated system with gas valves will probably spell disaster.
It could be dangerous if it’s not turned off properly, but it’s much more likely that people won’t be able to turn it on in the first place. If in doubt, keep it user-friendly with appliances that can be operated by everyone.
Strike a balance
It’s important to strike a balance between what the kitchen is used for every week and what you’d like it to be capable of. You don’t want to install high-end equipment on the off chance that it might get used once in a blue moon, but equally you don’t want to limit what the kitchen could be used for in the future.
At Steelplan Kitchens, our designers have years of experience creating bespoke kitchens that help churches to get the best of both worlds; installing commercial quality kitchens with a cosy, domestic feel. To find out how your church could benefit from a free consultation, call us on 0844 809 9186.
