In today’s article we could write for days about the horror stories we’ve experienced over the years with cheap commercial food equipment. We won’t bore you with those (unless you want us too) so we figured we’d keep this article short and to the point.
You know the ole saying that if somethings to good to be true, it usually is? This is almost always the case with commercial food equipment. It doesn’t matter what type of hospitality business you operate, if your equipment fails you don’t have a business.
Below we’ll take a look at the difference and true cost of bad commercial food equipment:
Slightly cheaper upfront – but a killer in the long run
We’ll use the example of an Italian restaurant that one of their feature menu item’s is their pizza’s. When launching the restaurant budget was tight so instead of spending 15% more and buying a quality proven oven, they opt’d for a slightly cheaper oven. Let’s call the difference $20,000 and $16,500. The business is launched, operating and customers are loving the pizzas. They are sharing this venue across the internet and social media and things are booming. Booming so much that this restaurant is averaging 100 pizza’s a night (dine-in and takeaway).
At an average of $18 and $10 net profit that is $1800 revenue and $1000 profit in takings per night. Let’s say that you fire up the machine 1hr before service and it’s not operating correctly. You may have warranty if it’s a new machine, but they may have a slower response time of up to 24hrs to get onsite. This mean’s potentially 2 evenings trade at $1000 profit per night, cost to your pocket of $2000.
Are you starting to get the picture? Cheaper equipment may look as nice, may operate as nice in the beginning but commercial equipment has commercial usage. Some cheaper commercial food equipment is built and tested for home use not commercial use. This often means that after time or high usage the equipment will fail, and in situations like the Italian restaurant it means trading holt, or key menu items now become unavailable. Imagine being an Italian restaurant and telling customers there is no pizza.
Need help with Commercial Food Equipment?
We can help. We have over 25 years assisting with commercial food equipment across north Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. You can also submit an online enquiry and we’ll get in touch shortly, or you can call us directly on 07 5476 8466