The Big Chill

Keeping one’s cool during peak performance periods is a challenge for most any operator. To help maintain peace of mind, not to mention inventory, most operators rely on their walk-in coolers and freezers.

Foodservice Equipment & Supplies - February 2005

Laura Doty
Contributing Editor

Walk-ins are an expensive yet vital item for the storage of perishables in any foodservice operation. Menus, daily service volumes, location and type of usage are all important considerations for operators and dealers when determining needs for walk-in refrigerators and freezers.

Keeping one’s cool during peak performance periods is a challenge for most any operator. So the last thing they want to worry about is whether perishable or other temperature-sensitive ingredients or menu items, such as beer and wine, are keeping their cool. To help maintain peace of mind, not to mention inventory, most operators rely on their walk-in coolers and freezers. This article examines how three different operations serving three very different market segments manage to keep their cool when the going gets hot.

Chef Daniel Boulud opened his first restaurant, Daniel, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in 1993, with a menu inspired by seasonal ingredients available from the best local purveyors and his extensive French culinary background. Daniel moved to its present location on Park Avenue in 1999, retaining its reputation as one of the best restaurants in the world. A battery of walk-in coolers to store Daniel’s perishable products efficiently were specified around the kitchens’ particular needs and to support the restaurant’s menus. This includes the 15,000-bottle wine cellar and a recently added walk-in that allows for on-site curing of prosciutto, sausage and other charcuterie items.

“While knowing exactly what is required for daily menu preparations is the key to designing a facility’s walk-in storage areas, in locations such as New York City, dealing with tight spaces is also a big issue,” said Brett Traussi, director of Operations for Daniel and Boulud’s additional restaurants: Café Boulud, and DB Bistro Moderne in New York City; Café Boulud, Palm Beach, Fla.; and a soon-to-open Las Vegas outpost in a resort being built by renowned developer Steve Wynn.

“Operators dealing with walk-in placement in New York City restaurants may contend with challenges such as low overhead clearance or structural beams and columns inside designated areas,” Traussi said. “Epoxy-coated wire shelving units are preferred for use in the walk-ins. They resist corrosion and bacterial growth and provide air circulation.”

One small walk-in (9 ft. by 7 ft.) is located in the gleaming, state-of-the-art production kitchen at Daniel, stocked daily with the mise en place needed for menu preparations. Four small-size walk-in coolers conveniently serve the large, bustling prep kitchen at Daniel, located one floor below the dining room and showcase production kitchen. Walk-in refrigerators are designated to hold different types of perishables, for reasons that include both convenience and the avoidance of cross-contamination of foodborne pathogens. One narrow walk-in cooler is designated to hold up to six rolling racks outfitted with sliding trays for banquet, and party-food prep. Ceiling fans are centrally mounted in the produce walk-in to allow space along two walls for wire shelving that holds fresh items stored in clear plastic containers. The seafood and meat walk-in includes space for hanging meats from hooks along one shelving unit. Eggs and dairy products are stored in the front portion of a combo refrigerator/freezer walk-in adjacent to the prep kitchen at Daniel. “Because Daniel’s menus focus on the freshest ingredients available, perishables are rarely stored in the freezer, which is used primarily by our pastry chefs for dessert preparation,” Traussi added.

Last spring, a new walk-in cooler was installed in a sub-basement area to accommodate on-site aging and curing of meats for the charcuterie items that Daniel’s executive chef, Jean Francois Bruel, has been experimenting with for the restaurant’s menus. “Overhead clearance in the curing cooler is only about 5 ft., but that is enough to accommodate roll-in racks of wire shelving to store products as they age,” Traussi explained. Last, but certainly not least, the 900-sq.-ft., insulated basement wine cellar is refrigerated to keep the award-winning, 15,000-bottle wine collection at Daniel at the consistent 60°F. temperature necessary to ensure the quality and integrity of the wine served.

The 20 compressors needed to power mechanical refrigeration for Daniel are tucked into another small basement room. Water lines for compressors run from a rooftop water tank, but can be switched over to run through the facility’s water lines so that they may be cleaned and flushed on a quarterly refrigeration maintenance schedule.

A specialty beer cooler walk-in, built to store and deliver beer to concession purchase-points for patrons at Boston University’s newly opened Agganis Arena, was one part of a million-dollar project at the arena for dealership Jacob Licht Inc., Providence, R.I.

“The bulk beer walk-in cooler presented some unique challenges in fabrication and installation. We subcontracted Perfection Beverage Services to provide the beer distribution system installed within the bulk beer walk-in cooler,” explained Gary Licht, president, Jacob Licht. The cooler walk-in itself, which has a footprint of about 500-sq.-ft., is built to hold 32 aluminum beer kegs online, another 32 as backup, and at least another 32 kegs in storage. The walk-in’s floor, built with an interior ramp, was reinforced with an aluminum tread floor to support the weight of the stored kegs of beer. To provide an extra tier of support for heavy keg storage, customized shelves “that are somewhat similar to subway grating” were fabricated by a specialty manufacturer for the beer walk-in, according to Project Manager Ron Muise.

Kegs on-line in the beer cooler feed 18-to-20 service points at six concession stands in the arena. Literally, miles of plastic beverage line run through the building between the tapped kegs in the walk-in cooler and the taps at points of service. Bundles containing six to eight beverage lines, depending on how many brands of beer are offered to patrons, are tapped into each service keg and gathered inside the cooler in 8-in. aluminum conduits, and include recycling glycol lines in and out of the cooler that serve to insulate the beer lines and maintain the desired coldness of the beer as it travels through them. Walls inside the cooler were reinforced with 18-in. to 24-in. wooden panels to support the attachment of the aluminum conduits. “In a project such as this, one of the main challenges is the engineering involved in properly installing the beverage lines from point to point. The lines must all remain in one piece to avoid leaks and were pre-sized and assembled at Perfection Beverage Services,” Licht explained. “The lines were delivered on seven large wooden spools on the back of a flat-bed truck. Just getting the spools off the truck was a major undertaking in the installation process.”

The bulk beer walk-in was installed in the lower level of Agganis Arena, convenient to a truck delivery dock. A metal sliding door opens to the walk-in’s double doors, which are large enough to provide access for material-handling trucks transporting kegs of beer into the walk-in. Both doors are equipped with locks for security purposes. Compressors located just outside the double walk-in doors provide air and refrigeration for the glycol used in the beer delivery system. A powerful, 4-hp compressor installed on the roof of the walk-in keeps the internal cooler’s temperature at 38°F.

“We consider the first month kind of a shakedown period when dealing with mechanical refrigeration, because start-up equipment failures will generally occur within that period, often within the first 48 hours,” Licht said. “We like to run newly installed walk-in coolers for a week before our client/operators move perishable foodstuffs in, to give us time to make sure compressors and fans are working properly and avoid a lot of aggravation.”

Multi-function walk-in coolers including cooled work areas in some modern foodservice facilities may be designed to accommodate staff duties such as food fabrication or for tray plating to enhance food freshness and maintain safe food-holding temperatures.

At Oceanaire Seafood Room, Minneapolis, Executive Chef Rick Kimmes uses a hand-held thermometer with digital readout to check daily deliveries of fresh fish for temperature. The results are logged into the kitchen’s designated seafood walk-in. Fish boning, filleting and portioning is then undertaken inside the walk-in at a workstation outfitted with cutting board, prep sink and hand sink. Portioned fish ready for production is then placed in perforated plexi pans and stored in tiered rolling racks inside the walk-in, which is cooled to 30°F. to maximize fresh holding before transport to mise en place at the kitchen’s cooking stations. An insulated double-pane window is built into the seafood walk-in above the fabrication workstation, so that communication can be maintained between the fabricator working inside and the activity in the kitchen outside. Ceiling-mounted fluorescent lights in the walk-in are protected with plastic safety shields.

The flagship Oceanaire Seafood Room opened six years ago in the Hyatt Hotel in Minneapolis in a space that was previously occupied by an Italian restaurant. “The designated seafood walk-in was added to the kitchen footprint for Oceanaire, but our produce walk-in was already in place with the previous kitchen layout,” explained Kimmes. “The door on the walk-in was replaced, however, to ensure the quality performance of the walk-in cooler. The new door has a third hinge to make it stronger, and includes a stainless wainscoting to protect the door from bumps and dents. This door also includes a small window to prevent accidents when we’re busy and popping in and out of the walk-in into the kitchen.”

Since both of Oceanaire’s walk-ins are located in the main kitchen area, an extra hanging plastic strip, insulation pass-through screen was added inside both the walk-in doors to help maintain internal temperatures.