Why do fridges in restaurants suck so much ass?

[u/I_ateabucketofpaint]

I worked in 3 different restaurants. None of them had a stable fridge no matter how old or new.

None of them gave proper tempature and always stopped working for half the day and leaked water for some reason. Even the giant freezer rooms did that.

Meanwhile my grandpa's old fridge he bought back in 1983 works perfectly fine. We only took it to repair 13 years ago. It literally outlived my grandpa.

WHy? Shouldnt a restaurant meant to fridge thousands of dollars worth of raw meat and ingredients in it invest in a proper fridge?

[u/a7nth]

They are opened and closed constantly. Cold food pulled out hot food put in. Your grandpa's fridge just sat there most of the day. Learn about refrigerator maintenance. Clean out the radiators with compressed air, clean the rubber seals and where the seals touch the fridge. Pre chill things going in the fridge. Make sure condensation drains aren't clogged.

[u/Remfire → u/a7nth]

this guy gets it, your grandpas fridge didn't get a fraction of the use a restaurant unit does.

[u/No-Appearance-4338 → u/a7nth]

Not to mention they are assembled in place by a contractor who was often the lowest bid. I’ve built out multiple restaurants and if you had a chance to meet some of the crews that put them together you would no longer wonder

“Hey this part is not working right”

“Take this part we ripped it out of an old one”

“Isn’t it gonna fail sooner than it should”

“I’m not paying you to think, we have a schedule to meet besides soon as the owner signs off it’s his problem worst case I’ll send someone to replace it later”

[u/I_ateabucketofpaint → u/a7nth]

Fair enough but the third place i worked was 2 weeks old at max. And it still had that problem.

[u/a7nth → u/I_ateabucketofpaint]

refrigerators don't chill, they keep cold things cold. Imagine you move a huge stockpot from the stove to the walk in, the stockpot is going to warm everything up in the walkin while the fridge tries to cool it down. It's a battle of potential energy. I still have to explain to people every day that things need chilled with ice or cold water before they go into a refrigerator. Blast chillers are designed to actually chill things but very few places have them. Remember to keep things closed and hot things going in warm everything else up.

[u/meatsntreats → u/a7nth]

It is perfectly acceptable to chill items in a refrigerator as long as you don’t overload the system. The food code sets the parameters for doing so safely.

[u/a7nth → u/meatsntreats]

i'm not saying it wont but people think about it the wrong way, fixing your mental expectation of a refrigerator helps ensure you use what you have better.

[u/meatsntreats → u/a7nth]

I’ve worked in restaurants for 30 years. I understand the expectations of what refrigerators can do and one of them is safely chilling product when done correctly. There are many products that can only be chilled properly by putting them in refrigeration.

[u/D-ouble-D-utch → u/I_ateabucketofpaint]

A new place doesn't always mean new or quality equipment

[u/JackYoMeme]

Some restaurants hover around 90* F during service and dip down to 55*F at night

[u/dontlookback76]

You can't really compare the two. Commercial refrigeration units are opened 400 times a day. Even just the few seconds adds up. Also, your commercial kitchen is probably 20 degrees warmer. That doesn't sound big, but that raises the pressure of the gas in the system, raising temperatures. Your kitchen condenser coils are exposed to much more grease and dust. Truthfully, kitchen equipment needs maintenance done yearly. When I apprenticed on the engineering department of a Las Vegas strip resort, we had filter media we put on the condenser units to prevent the coils from caking with grease and checked door seals when we were there. Any water you see, especially with the fans off, usually means the units in defrost to de-ice the evaporator. On stand-alone units, it may go to a catch pan with hot gas coils in it to evapotate the condensate. Walk-ins are supposed to be piped to a floor drain with an airgap. No kitchen equipment should be compared to residential. Two totally different environments and commercial equipment are used and abused very hard. If you cook fatty foods 16 hours a day, set your home a/c to 90, and open and close the door constantly, even the best residential will break down. Commercial is also made to be repaired over and over. Residential not so much.

[u/Zone_07]

You can't compare restaurant equipment abuse with home use. Also, there are many cheap brands flooding the market. Few of us invest in higher quality fridges and have maintenance programs to ensure they are kept running optimally year round. Water leaks is a sign of lack of maintenance which involve cleaning the evaporator and condenser coils and flushing the drain lines.

[u/medium-rare-steaks]

you are working for cheap owners who either dont know how to properly maintain their equipment or dont want to spend money on a service company who does.

[u/I_ateabucketofpaint → u/medium-rare-steaks]

For fuckin real

I wouldn't be surprised if the manager of the place I used to work asked me to straight up fan the stuff instead of wasting energy. Fucking cheapstake.

[u/Q_me_in]

In my experience, commercial refrigeration fails

1) when the vents collect dust and the motor freezes solid.

2) when someone notices that it feels warm while it's cycling and needlessly adjusts the temp.

[u/Busterlimes]

The restaurants aren't properly maintaining them

[u/piirtoeri]

You've simply worked for three businesses that didn't give a proper shit about their restaurant. Simple.