By Commercial Service Company · October 12, 2026
Opening a restaurant is one of the few times an owner buys an entire kitchen's worth of equipment at once. Get the planning wrong and you'll spend your first year fighting fit problems, utility surprises, and warranty paperwork nobody filed. Here's the checklist we walk new restaurant, grocery, and foodservice owners through across Conway, Little Rock, Benton, Bryant, Maumelle, Jacksonville, Searcy, and Russellville.
Size Equipment to the Menu, Not the Showroom Floor
Every piece of new restaurant equipment should be chosen against your actual menu and expected volume, not against what looks good on a sales floor. A walk-in that's too small gets overstuffed and runs warm; a fryer battery sized for a much larger volume wastes energy and floor space every single day. Before you order anything, work backward from your menu:
- List every menu item and the equipment needed to produce it at peak volume, not average volume.
- Measure the actual kitchen footprint, including door swings, aisle clearance, and code-required clearances around cooking equipment.
- Confirm ventilation hood coverage matches the cooking equipment you're putting under it — this is a life-safety item, not a convenience item.
- Leave room for growth on high-use equipment like reach-ins and ice machines; undersizing these is the most common early mistake we see.
Confirm Utilities Before You Place a Single Order
Commercial equipment has specific electrical, gas, and water/drain requirements, and those requirements have to match what's actually available at the site — not what you assume is there. This is where new buildouts and conversions of older spaces most often get stuck.
- Verify electrical service capacity and voltage/phase for every major piece of equipment before ordering — walk-ins, ice machines, and cooking lines often need dedicated circuits.
- Confirm gas line sizing and pressure with your utility and a licensed professional if any equipment is gas-fired.
- Check water supply, filtration needs, and floor drain locations for dish machines, ice machines, and steam equipment.
- Any gas, electrical, or refrigerant work should be scoped, connected, and signed off by a licensed technician — never attempt these connections yourself, even temporarily.
Equipment that arrives before the utilities are confirmed usually sits in a hallway. Lock in utility specs with your contractor and equipment supplier at the same time you place orders, not after.
Sequence the Install So Trades Aren't Waiting on Each Other
Commercial kitchen installs involve several trades working around the same footprint, and the order matters. A dish machine set before the floor drain is finished, or a walk-in placed before the condenser line set is run, means rework.
- Rough-in utilities (electrical, gas, water, drains) first, confirmed against each equipment spec sheet.
- Set heavy, fixed equipment next — walk-ins, hoods, and anything requiring structural or ceiling connections.
- Connect refrigeration and gas equipment only after rough-in is complete, and only through a licensed technician for final hookup, startup, and leak/pressure testing.
- Bring in smaller, mobile equipment (prep tables, reach-ins, smallwares) last, once the fixed layout is set.
- Schedule final equipment startup and testing before your health inspection, with enough buffer for any adjustments.
Register Every Warranty the Day It's Installed
Manufacturer warranties on compressors, controls, and major components are usually tied to the install date and often require registration within a set window — miss it, and you may be paying out of pocket for something that should have been covered. This step gets skipped constantly because it falls between the contractor finishing and the kitchen opening.
- Register every piece of equipment with the manufacturer immediately after startup, using the actual install date.
- Keep copies of the model and serial number, startup report, and installing technician's documentation for each unit.
- Confirm in writing what the warranty covers — parts only, or parts and labor — and for how long.
- File everything in one place (digital or physical) so it's easy to pull when something needs service.
Set Up a First-Year Preventive Maintenance Schedule
New equipment still needs scheduled maintenance. Most early-life failures trace back to install issues or lack of basic upkeep, not defective parts — and a PM visit in the first few months often catches a minor adjustment before it becomes a warranty claim or a breakdown during service.
- Schedule a first PM check within the first 90 days to catch any install-related issues early.
- Set a recurring PM schedule for refrigeration, ice machines, and cooking equipment — quarterly is a reasonable starting point for most kitchens.
- Keep basic daily/weekly tasks (cleaning condenser coils, checking door gaskets, logging temperatures) on staff, and leave refrigerant, gas, and electrical component work to a licensed technician.
- Track every service visit against your warranty documentation so you have a full history if a manufacturer ever questions a claim.
If you're opening or renovating a restaurant kitchen in central Arkansas, we can walk the space with you before equipment is ordered, handle licensed install and startup, and set up your first-year PM schedule. Give us a call at 501-548-2374.