September 2018 Digital Issue

AMANA ® XPRESS IQ OVEN
trepiece of the kitchen,
designed the menu to take
advantage of the technology.
They cut their flatbread
so it would fit inside the
ovens and the restaurant’s
spinach dip and nachos are
Merrychef regulars. Nachos
that took eight minutes
in a convection oven are
ready in 45 seconds —
and as hot and crispy as
their predecessors.
The company plans to
update all of its Beertown
kitchens with Merrychefs
on the strength of research
showing the Merrychefequipped
kitchen is
25-per-cent faster than its
three siblings. “We’ve been
very, very happy with it,”
Hodsgon says. “Thanks to
it, customers think we’re
fast and good.”
KILLING THE PIVOT
Innovation is also stirring
the POS piece. New
kitchen display systems
send orders from servers to
all corners of the kitchen,
eradicating the convention
of a chef calling orders to
the grill and dessert stations.
Designed to encourage
dining-room turnover
and rationalize labour
throughout the kitchen,
these smart systems triage
the food orders, sending
them to monitors at corresponding
food stations and
staggering production.
“They’re lifesavers,”
says Scott Davidson,
vice-president, Culinary
Development for
Burlington, Ont.-based
restaurant-consulting
group Crush Strategy,
Inc. “They create a calmer
culture in the kitchen. And,
if your kitchen’s organized
and streamlined, your food’s
coming through hot and
fresh — and an extra turnand-a-half
in a 200-seat dining
room is big dollars.”
While the POS systems
aren’t new (American fastfood
restaurants had them
in place a decade ago),
they’re now expanding to
bigger operations in the
U.S. such as Applebee’s and
the Cheesecake Factory.
Davidson feels there’s a
threshold to the size of
the business that can use
a system like this, suggesting
it should be generating
between $500,000 to
$1 million in food sales a
year to justify the upfront
investment. “The systems
were expensive,” says
Hodgson, whose Beertown
concept employs them.
“But worth it. They spread
labour costs out.”
REMEMBERED ROOTS
But as much as the equipment
in foodservice kitchens
is advancing quickly
into the future, there’s a
segment that’s reaching
into the past, too. Many
chefs are keen to revert
to more natural cooking,
with charcoal or wood,
and the romanticism tied
up with it. From replacing
the old diner lines with
equipment and personnel
pressed against one wall
with island suites where
chefs face each other à la
“Ratatouille” (a movement
spearheaded by French
Laundry’s Thomas Keller
and picked up by Toronto’s
Il Covo, Grey Gardens and
the Toronto Yacht Club,
among others) to wood
ovens that cook more than
pizza, the old is rubbing
C
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CM
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Faster. Safer.
Smarter.
The new Xpress IQ Model ARX features True-Touch HD
touchscreen, drop down door for crew-safety, certified ventless.
Connectivity ‘out-of-the-box’ standard
When it comes to speed, you need an oven that can
do more than cook delicious food fast. Everything
about the Xpress IQ Oven is quicker. From
installation to operation. Menu creation, updates and
management. Training, cleaning and maintenance.
Even service. The all new Xpress IQ Oven.
More than fast—it’s safer and smarter too.
Get the full story:
Xpress-IQ.com
Amana ® is a trademark of Maytag Properties, LLC or its related companies.
Manufactured under license by ACP, Inc. Limited warranty provided by manufacturer.
© 2018 ACP, Inc.
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