Now is the time for restaurants to start preparing for the holiday rush.

For many restaurants and commercial food businesses, the holidays are an incredibly lucrative but chaotic time. To maximize the potential of the season, staying organized with tools like work tables and overshelves is essential.

The holidays typically mean increased orders and tight turnarounds, which can put considerable pressure on a kitchen. But setting a kitchen up for success ahead of the rush can alleviate bottlenecks and make scaling up for the busy season seamless.

Luckily, most businesses have a couple of months before the holiday frenzy picks up. Here’s how to start preparing now and how to make this holiday season your most profitable one yet.

What You Need Before the Rush

The key to planning for the holiday is to determine what will likely be popular during peak times, identify your goals for output, and then work from there.

If you’ve survived a busy holiday season before, now is the time to review historical data and see what items were popular, when business peaks, and how quickly your kitchen responded.

For example, if you’re running a bakery that specializes in pies, you likely saw peaks around Thanksgiving and Christmas. How many pies were your staff able to turn around during those periods, and how much lead time did you build in? If you have a restaurant, when did reservations peak? What were the most popular dishes? If you have a commercial kitchen, what items did customers typically purchase as the holidays approached?

With data in hand, the next step is to pinpoint your goals—and the bottlenecks standing in the way. For instance, were there not enough work tables in the kitchen to roll out pie dough last year, limiting the number of orders you could take? Did staff have to run from the kitchen to a separate storage station to retrieve ingredients, thereby cutting into prep time?

After identifying goals and areas where shortcomings could arise in the kitchen, you can begin planning a budget for new equipment or reconfiguring your prep space for optimal output.

Why Quality Work Tables Matter

Much of the labor that occurs in a kitchen takes place during prep. Having durable work tables that can withstand heavy use while making kitchen tasks seamless is vital to surviving a busy holiday schedule.

Work tables come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, making it challenging to choose the right one for your kitchen. We recommend stainless steel tables because they won’t rust, can withstand high volumes, and are easy to clean. Work tables with undershelves are also helpful because they provide storage and reduce the need to run to other parts of the kitchen for supplies.

The key to finding a good work table is making it work for your space. At Serv-Ware, we offer a range of work tables in various sizes, allowing you to design workspaces tailored to your specific needs.

Overshelves for Efficiency and Organization

Nothing kills the flow of service like running out of a necessary ingredient. Investing in overshelves for storage provides additional space by utilizing vertical space, often overlooked when designing kitchen layouts.  

Overshelves both provide more storage space and clear up work tables and prep stations. Kitchen staff then have more space to operate and scale up their work, essential to accommodate the busyness of the holidays.

Look for overshelves that can be adjusted to meet your needs: check out shelves with adjustable heights that are durable and fit easily with your existing tables. Serv-Ware’s selection of overshelves is designed to be multimodal and fit with a variety of prep table sizes.

Getting Ready for the Holidays

Now is the time to reconfigure your layout: Is your space designed for optimal flow? Usually, kitchens are most efficient when they operate from left to right. Before things get busy, check how the flow of your kitchen works for staff and if stations can be rearranged to make movement more efficient.

You can plan all you want, but things change when ideas are actually put into practice. Try a mock run of a busy service or sample a holiday order to see how your kitchen staff responds. A test like this can reveal hiccups or failure points that might not be immediately obvious.

This is also a good time to order extra backups of screws and small parts that frequently need replacement. You’ll also need a comprehensive maintenance plan, in case things break, such as a reliable repair service or backup equipment in the event of a breakdown.

The holidays can feel scary, but they’re often the most profitable season for food businesses. With the right preparation—and the support of well-placed work tables and overshelves—kitchens can navigate the holiday rush and finish the season strong.

But the time to start planning is now! Check out Serv-Ware’s line of overshelves, work tables, and other kitchen essentials to get your operation holiday-ready.