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Ideal Hostel Kitchen

General Hostel Operations

Gunner started this discussion 14 years 11 months ago

Hello everyone,

Our hostel, a fairly large one (330 beds) in the US, is about to undergo a kitchen expansion and renovation. I'd like any suggestions that you think may help.

We are expanding into another room so space is not a issue. This is what we are planning to do but we are still in the design phase:

Two cooking triangles (fridge, prep area, cooking surface)
One large glass front freezer
Two large glass front refrigerators
Cubbies for food storage for guests
One commercial style dishwasher (one where guests fill trays and staff runs them through)
Central island for food prep
Pots and pans hanging above center island
Vending room off of of the kitchen

We plan to use stainless steel for all/most surfaces.

I would really appreciate comments or suggestions as I'm sure many of you have experience in this. Please let me know what has worked and what hasn't worked for you.

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Shannon

14 years

I am just doing a design for a new hostel at the moment for a 320 bed property. This design is based on a design for a 390 bed hostel we have recently built but have found to be about half the size of what would be ideal.

4 x Double door commercial fridges
1 x freezer
10 x 4 hob gas stoves (with emergency gas cut off)
4 x microwaves
8 x sinks
1 x wall mounted Rini hot water urn
1 x oven
150-180 cubes for storage
All in stainless
Tile floors (handles heat and damage better)

Hope that helps

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uktrail

14 years

I'll just make a few points based on kitchens I have experienced:

Think very carefully about layout. Have plenty of preparation surfaces, including if possible on both sides of each cooking surface and each sink, and absolutely essentially on one side. There are some small kitchens where the person standing in from of the cooking hob gets in the way of the person standing by the sink, and vice versa, and the surface between the two is nearly useless because people have to reach over the cooker or sink to get something. Open shelves for plates, cups etc are far easier to use by guests than those oh-so-neat cupboards where the guest has to open several to find which one has the small plates; but I guess open shelves are frowned upon for health and attractiveness reasons. Don't have soft drink vending machines, they add to the noise already present of fridges and extractor fans, and can make the place feel industrial.

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