This is a question for those of you who have set up your own kitchens with commercial/professional grade equipment.

Where did you get your equipment from, and how did you know what to buy? What do you have in your kitchens?

I am also curious to know when did you know the point had come that you needed to upgrade to commerical equipment, had you reached a certain volume of orders, or was it required by law?

I opened my shop with regular equipment but will be upgrading to commercial as I can afford it and need to bake & store more. I am getting ready to have another oven put in but it is a regular range. My next step is a convection oven...that will come sometime next year.

i started with regular kitchen equipment. as my business has grown we moved it to a bigger room and i have bought used commercial equipment. its a big savings. and its working great. needed more space to bake more at a time and needed to mix bigger batches of icing at a time.
i have a lang oven and a hobart mixer. and they can be serviced too.
the equipment wasnt required by law to have commercial. just had to have seperate equipment from my kitchen. the only requirement was the temp. range on the dishwasher.

just look for commercial equipment(resturant supply) in the phone book or ask around, or ask the local bakeries who service there equipment. i think hobart is nation wide they could give you referrals. they sell new and used also.

I found a contractor who did a lot of work with commercial kitchens. The in-house kitchen designer knew what equipment I'd need and wouldn't need; knew the local health dept laws and what they'd require; knew how to set up a kitchen that would pass health dept workflow requirements and be productivity efficient. They also had used equipment in their warehouse that I was able to get at a great price. (As they re-do kitchens they pull out and/or buy the old stuff and warehouse it, using it in new projects as needed).

Just be sure that whoever you work with is familiar with your local health dept requirements. You'll save money and headaches!

Do you have a restaurant supply shop near you? They are generally very helpful. They usually know the codes, and can help you with used equipment. They might also help you with the layout of your kitchen when you purchase your equipment from them.

It all depends on what you want to do and the requirements of the area you are in, really. Here, everything must be commercial, but they can't tell me what I have to have. However, whatever I choose to have (oven, range, dishwasher, etc) must be commercial. I would also have to have a hood over my oven or range. Those are pretty costly.

You can find anything on Ebay. if you do the searches by distance sometimes there is some stuff local you can buy with no shipping,most of the time.

Thank you all for your replies. Interesting to see how laws vary across the country, some of you had to have commercial equipment, some do not.

I do not live in the US, and there is very little regulation with regards to health and safety if working from home. The reason I am interested in the subject is that my husband and I are talking about building a house long-term. If we do I would like a purpose built separate kitchen for cakes. I was figuring that with commercial equipment I would be able to do bigger batches so that I can turn around larger volumes in shorter time.

Great idea to look for used equipment, I do not want to spend huge amount of money. Do not want to fall in the trap of investing an enormous amount of money and then decide it is too much for me, or that the investment does not pay off.

You have given me food (cake) for thought, thanks again.

What do you all do for refrigeration and cooling? I find that is the hardest thing to get by on with just a regular fridge. I have two in my house, but if I am in full on cake mode one will be stuffed full of cake stuff. I am also wondering if there is such a thing as a cooler, not refrigerator? It is hot all year around here so unless I keep my A/C on low which is expensive and uncomfortable, my roomtemp is higher than what is good for cakes. Which always leads me to wonder what to do with fondant covered cakes. I am always a bit weary of refrigerating fondant cakes, I am not keen on the sheen from the humidity. So the ideal thing for me would be a cooler where the temp would be lower than (my) room temp, but higher than a fridge. Anyone if there is such a thing?

I have two large refrigerators and a large freezer. Well, had a large freezer.

The freezer will be replaced next week, I can not do with out it.

Anyway, I have not heard of an appliance like you describe. I have to keep my a/c running most of the year...and it really does suck.

The only thing I could think of would be a Sub Zero type refrigerator. I think if I had a bakery, this would be my ideal method of storage. Of course I have really expensive taste and thus I'm gonna have to rob a bank in order to make my "ideal" bakery come to fruition.

For us it is required by our county health department that all appliances be commercial. We picked them all up used, mostly on ebay but we got a couple of pieces from a pretty big cake shop that shut their doors last year.

I can't imagine buying everything new. In year 1 of our own location we have already spent $40,000+ but if we had purchased brand new gear we would be well over $60K.

Regarding a cooler, have you tried contacting a Coke or Pepsi distributor? They might have a used pop cooler that they would be willing to sell. You can adjust the temperature on those to what you would need, ie, less cold than a standard refrigerator. A two door cooler would take up more room than a regular fridge, but the extra room would be great.

Interesting thread....thanks! For those thinking about convection ovens, I was in Best Buy last night looking at refrigerators and the worker told me that most manufacturers "NEW" items were coming out within the next three months and most of the ranges (convection and regular) and fridges were being put on clearance.....so I'm watching for my fridge to go on sale! I'm sure this will be the case for most stores that sell them!

peterlori1, that is a great idea, thanks! Funny, because I was thinking about a wine cooler, but usually those are small, and probably very expensive for the space you get.

Anyway, need to get myself some more space first.