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How to Fine Tune Your Kitchen Stations for Maximum Efficiency & Output

Imagine a visit to the ballet. The dancers have practiced their technique for years and have learned every step and every swell of the music. In each part of the piece, they know exactly how to hold their arms, when to leap and where they need to land so that they don't hurt each other or interrupt the flow of the performance, particularly on a busy night.

The result of all this planning and practice is a piece of art that, if well executed, is a beautiful thing to watch. A high-performing kitchen team is much the same as a ballet company. Each member knows exactly what to do and when, and has got his or her movements down so well that the food gets out to each guest exactly as intended and no one gets in each other's way. This, too, is a beautiful thing to watch.

So how does your kitchen team become a smoothly functioning performance, especially when you may have seasonal turnover or have lots of part-timers working the line?

Choreographed Kitchens

Just as the ballet company has a choreographer to design the dance before it is performed, a restaurant needs to choreograph how each position on the line will function during service.

The way we choreograph kitchens is through a detailed planning exercise that translates the activities of each work position into a set of kitchen station diagrams.

A kitchen station diagram is a drawing that shows the position of each piece of equipment and all utensils held at a particular workstation as well as the location of all the prepped ingredients or mise en place that need to be kept there for service. These diagrams are the roadmap to good process flow and are invaluable for training new staff.