3 Reasons Why You Need a Commercial Dishwasher for Your Restaurant

by Ralph Trayfalgar, May 2020

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As the owner and/or manager of a food establishment, you often have a lot on your plate. Making sure that your customers are fed great food at great speed requires a restaurant that operates like clockwork.

Each of your staff, from the cooks to the waiters, to the busboys and maitre d's, should be working in sync through the fast, chaotic hours of lunch and dinner service. While some restaurateurs would like to be able to replace their staff with faster and more efficient robot equivalents, the technology just isn't there – or, for the most part at least, not yet.

There is, however, one role in the kitchen that machinery has overtaken, and it has already done so for years. This role, of course, is the dishwasher. Concerns about job creation aside, though, commercial-grade dishwashers are quite expensive.

What makes them worth the investment? This article will break it down into 3 simple and very compelling reasons.

Reason 1: Commercial dishwashers are faster.

One of the main arguments in support of commercial dishwashers is that they simply work faster and more efficiently than a human worker washing dishes by hand. Unlike human workers (and even residential dishwashers), commercial-grade dishwashers are designed and built to wash dozens or even hundreds of pieces of tableware at a consistent rate and quality for extended periods of time.

This is absolutely essential for larger food establishments, as kitchens will need a constant supply of clean dishes and cutlery for the hundreds of customers they serve every day. One can try to imagine doing the same with nothing but water, soap, a sponge, and a lot of hands – simply put, it just isn't very feasible.

Reason 2: Commercial dishwashers are safer.

Whether you're a large cafeteria or a small family diner, it is important – much more so than how good the food tastes – that the food that the restaurant serves is safe to eat in the first place. While a commercial-grade dishwasher is designed to consistently clean and disinfect each dish according to industry standards, the same cannot be said for a human worker that does the same job by hand.

When we say this, we are not implying that washing dishes by hand is not safe in general; rather, we are saying this in the context of a restaurant during peak hours. The very fast pace of a restaurant's operations at peak hours means that there will be a lot of pressure on dishwashers to work at a similar speed. This pressure can lead to workers prioritising speed to make sure that there are clean dishes ready, but this can also cause a drop in the cleaning quality.

Reason 3: Commercial dishwashers are cheaper.

At first, it might be a bit difficult to believe that a commercial dishwasher could be considered "cheap", especially as most decent ones cost well into the thousands of dollars. Though their up-front cost might be a hard pill to swallow, part of what makes them so expensive is the design and features that allow you to save money in the long term.

Thanks to more advanced technology (as well as a bit of pressure from regulators), modern commercial grade dishwashers are designed to use much less water and dishwashing solution to wash each dish. One of the key design elements that make this possible is the use of water at high temperatures and pressures.

By increasing the temperature of the water, it becomes more capable of killing bacteria and microbes on dishes and cutlery, while increasing the pressure of the water delivery improves its ability to physically remove stains and debris left on the dishes – all while using the same or lower amounts of water per dishwashing load.

Another key to the speed and efficiency of the commercial dishwasher is its size and capacity. Although there are compact commercial dishwashers on the market (which are usually marketed for smaller food establishments), most dishwashers are much larger than the ones designed for homes, using larger dishwasher racks that can wash larger numbers of dishes and cutlery with each dishwashing load.

Naturally, this results in a larger throughput of tableware as more dishes are cleaned within the same span of time. Combine this with their resource-saving features and their general reliability, and one will find that commercial dishwashers can save lots of money on utility bills over time.

Conclusion

The high price tag of a commercial dishwasher is more than enough to give many restaurateurs pause. With that being said, however, its benefits more than make up for said price tag.

As the owner of a restaurant, one must always think of the customers; with this in mind, the increased work efficiency, reliability, and assurance of food safety should be more than enough to warrant investing in a commercial dishwasher.