Commercial Kitchen Appliances

Countertop fryers, floor fryers and the stock pot range:

the fryer is the first thing that sorts one kitchen from another. Countertop gas fryers hold around 6 litres of oil per tank, and they are what kiosks and lunch counters use for fried plantain, yuca fritters and fried bread. Floor fryers are rated by pounds of oil, 40 lb being the usual restaurant size, and pressure fryers are the closed-lid machines behind fried-chicken counters. A 36-inch industrial range puts six open burners over an oven, while a stock pot range is a low burner stand with no oven, built for the wide pot of rice or stew. Smooth or grooved griddles, salamanders and convection ovens finish the line. The cold side has its own pages: commercial refrigerators and commercial freezers. The dining room is under hospitality furniture.

Semi-industrial ranges against a real commercial line:

the label semi-industrial goes on heavy home ranges, and is the commonest way to overpay. Their burners give a fraction of a commercial open burner, which puts out around 30,000 BTU. A semi-industrial range can carry a small lunch counter; it will not carry a restaurant lunch. With fryers, match the tank to the volume: a countertop unit is slow to recover heat after a full basket, fine for fried plantain in batches, not for a chicken counter with a queue.

Bottled gas and the rating plate:

Panamanian kitchens cook on LPG, and a line with a floor fryer and a range runs on 60- or 100-lb cylinders or a bulk tank, with a regulator sized for the load. Read the plate before the price. It gives the gas type, the total BTU and, on convection ovens, whether the fan runs on 110 V or 220 V, since both are sold here. Kit brought in used from the United States is often set up for natural gas, and it needs the manufacturer’s LPG conversion, with new orifices and regulator, before it goes on a cylinder.

What a fryer or a range is worth once it has cooked:

a 40-lb two-basket gas floor fryer is around $900 to $1,200 new, and a 36-inch six-burner range with oven around $1,500 to $1,750. Used, the two part ways. A range has little on it to fail beyond valves and burner heads, so a clean one keeps much of its value. A fryer lives or dies by its frypot: if the tank weeps, the fryer is worth its parts, whatever its age.

Frypots, flames and griddle plates on a used unit:

look under the fryer first. Hardened oil on the floor or behind the door means a leaking frypot, and a new tank costs close to a new fryer, so keep looking. Thermostats, thermocouples and high-limit switches are cheap, so a pilot that will not stay lit is a bargaining point. Ask to see a full tank heated and check the oil with your own thermometer against the dial. On a range, every burner should light with an even blue flame and every valve should turn smoothly; lazy yellow flames mean clogged ports or orifices set for another gas. Lay a straightedge across a griddle plate, because a warped one cooks in hot and cold patches. A convection oven should hold temperature with the fan running and the door gasket whole.

When a lunch counter closes or a restaurant replaces its line:

the rating plate answers most of what a buyer will want to know, so photograph it: gas type, BTU and voltage. Give the width and depth, because a 36-inch range has to fit through someone else’s kitchen door, and state the oil capacity or burner count, how long it was in service and every repair, welding on a frypot above all. Drain and degrease it before the photos, since grease hides dents and rust. Say whether the regulator, hoses and baskets go with it, and offer to fire it up on your own gas. Someone collecting a floor fryer needs to find it drained and cold, and to bring a second pair of hands for the lift into the pickup.