Ask any restaurant or café owner, and they’ll tell you the type of commercial refrigerator you pick is one of the most important decisions you’ll make as a business owner.

That might feel like an exaggeration, especially if buying a commercial refrigerator for a business is treated as a task to complete on a checklist or an area to skimp on. However, many restaurants and cafés have serious issues if their refrigerators can’t meet their needs.

The kind of restaurant refrigerator you pick can limit how a kitchen is set up and how much food you can adequately store, completely restricting your menu options. Likewise, cafés that live and die by the amount of lattes they make or grab-and-go food options they sell might be unable to grow and thrive because of poor refrigeration choices.

There are dozens of commercial refrigerators to consider for restaurants and cafés, from display fridges that showcase goods for customers to bottle coolers for bars to top rails for salad prep stations — here’s a breakdown of the kinds of commercial refrigerators available and what you need for your business.

What Kind of Commercial Refrigerator Do I Need?

The type of restaurant refrigerator you need depends on what you need the fridge to do. Here’s a breakdown of the main types of restaurant refrigerators and how they fit into different food service environments, with examples from Serv-Ware’s catalog of commercial refrigerators:

Display Fridges

A display fridge is both a storage system and a showcase feature. Sometimes known as a merchandiser or a refrigerated display case, a display fridge is a commercial refrigerator designed to showcase chilled products. Key to a display fridge is its transparent glass door, allowing customers to see what’s inside without opening the door.

Serv-Ware’s glass door fridges are designed to present products like bottled beverages, desserts, or grab-and-go meals.

Best For: Front-of-house use in cafés or any space with grab-and-go options.

Reach-In Refrigerators

Reach-in refrigerators are the most common type of fridge in kitchens or back-of-house spaces. The name says it all: you open a door and reach in for what you need. These models are upright and offer ample cold storage without taking up excessive floor space — just make sure to measure where you want to install these fridges, especially in tight spaces.

Serv-Ware offers stainless steel reach-in refrigerators, which are easy to clean and durable. We have models with 1-3 doors and adjustable shelving to accommodate whatever you need to keep cold.

Best For: Restaurant kitchens, back-of-house storage for ingredients like meats, dairy, and produce.

Undercounter refrigerators

Undercounter refrigerators are ideal for cafés and open-concept kitchens. They fit neatly under prep tables or counters, also making them perfect for kitchens where space is limited and accessibility is key. Undercounter refrigerators are also good freezer options since they’re out of the way and don’t need access as often.

In kitchens, they often store things used frequently and must be kept close to prep stations and chefs.

Best For: Cafés where baristas need to talk to customers, bars, sandwich stations, and prep areas.

Chef Bases

Chef bases are fridges with sturdy surfaces that can serve as a prep station or hold cooking equipment. Serv-Ware’s chef bases are built to support heavy-duty appliances while keeping ingredients chilled.

Best For: Compact kitchens, anywhere a restaurant or café needs to save space while still prepping food.

Sandwich and Pizza Prep Tables

These fridges have a prep station and a cabinet that can be pulled open and is refrigerated — usually, places that customize orders, like sandwich shops and pizza places, have fridges like these. The cabinet often stores a small variety of ready-to-grab things like toppings or sandwich fixings that are easily accessible but still refrigerated to keep their food safe.

Best For: Anywhere food needs to be assembled quickly, and ingredients need to be chilled and accessible. As the name implies, sandwich shops and pizza places fit the bill, but this style of fridge can benefit any quick-style restaurant or café.

Refrigeration Top Rails

Refrigeration top rails are similar to sandwich and pizza prep tables in that they have a cabinet on top that opens up and stores ingredients while keeping items refrigerated — but this model doesn’t have a prep station.

This is ideal for restaurants and cafés that need quick access to refrigerated ingredients without the added prep station — like a build-your-own-salad concept or a stir-fry restaurant where patrons can customize ingredients, but they don’t need to be chopped. Some restaurants also use this kind of fridge to store mise-en-place, items prepped before a food service starts, like chopped herbs or minced garlic.  

Best for: Prep-heavy kitchens, build-your-own-salad concepts, and any choose-your-own restaurant or café.

Beer Dispensers

Beer dispensers are fridges designed with built-in taps and can hook up to beer kegs. A beer dispenser fridge can be a smart, space-efficient solution that allows restaurants and cafés to serve cold, fresh draft beverages without running to a separate room or space to change kegs.

Best for: Restaurants and cafés that want to offer draft beer and other drinks that don’t have a built-in tap system.

Glass Frosters

A glass froster fridge keeps glassware cold — think beer mugs, cocktail glasses, and dessert cups, before serving drinks. The glass froster chills glassware quickly and creates a thin layer of frost, enhancing the appearance of whatever is served in the glass.

A glass froster can help bars and restaurants elevate their beverage service.

Best for: Places specializing in drinks or desserts where presentation is critical.

Bottle Coolers

Most people have seen bottle coolers if they’ve peeked behind a bar: it’s a fridge, usually with a glass door, designed to display bottles (typically, but not necessarily, beer bottles). Bottle coolers usually fit under counters, making grabbing beverages and other refrigerated goods easy. They usually have adjustable shelves and can help expedite service — they’re especially useful in high-volume spaces.

Best for: Any place serving ready-to-drink items, fast-paced restaurants and cafés that need to serve customers quickly.

What’s The Best Commercial Fridge For Your Restaurant or Café?

Figuring out the right commercial or restaurant refrigerator you need is like putting together a puzzle — you need to consider what you want for your business and how you plan to serve guests and achieve your goals.

But with the vast array of commercial fridges we have at Serv-Ware, we can help you figure out what’s best for you and will enable your restaurant or café to thrive.