Originally Posted by
elg26
I am born and raised in NJ....the "Home of the Diner"..... but still to this day it amazes me when I walk in a diner and look at the menu the amount of food items they can offer at any given time...
From pancakes, to omlettes, to Bagels and Lox, to burgers of all sorts, to gyros, to veal parm platter, to matzo brei, to buffalo chicken wrap, to rib eye steak, to New England clam chowder, to Chicken Marasala, to.......
You get my point.... the list goes on and on and on.....
How does one kitchen do this??
There are a number of components:
1. Some restaurants will rely very heavily on their freezers and pre-prepped items. You can buy reasonable (not good!) quality soups, chowders, sauces and all you have to do is reheat. Other restaurants may make their own products and freeze, or refrigerate.
2. Some restaurants may have extensive "all day" dining, but their experience will tell them the 10am on a Sunday crowd will be ordering the pancakes, waffles and omelets, not the Chicken Tikka Massala. Likewise, the lunch crowd on a Tuesday will be sandwich and salad heavy, far fewer orders of waffles and whipped cream. You pull items out of the freezer, prep fresh items based on past experiences and the vast majority of the time that will work fine. Other times they might be 'out' of an item (that really is just not going to be ready in a time frame you think acceptable).
3. Simple to produce dishes that take minimum time - pancakes, omelets, chicken wraps, bagels, steaks, French fries, stir fries, nachos, wings - in short anything that goes on a grill top, fry pan, under the broiler or in the deep fat fryer is generally easy and quick. A restaurant will have boiling water ready, so pasta / rice can be cooked quickly to order.
4. Cross use of ingredients - it may *look* like there are a million and one items on the menu, but chances are there are relatively few unique sides (lots of items with fries or salad for example). The bacon and sausage used for the all day breakfast platter is the same as goes with the pancakes, the waffles, the bacon is also used on the grilled cheese sandwich, the sausage is used on a breakfast bagel sandwich.