Blueprint Future

Michael Bonadies

“Most of our current projects,” says Jimi Yui, founding principal of YuiDesign, one of the country’s top kitchen design firms, “have kept moving through the pandemic with a mission to design kitchens with fewer bodies and less space. Our key learning has been not to dramatically shrink kitchens but rather to design them with labor flexibility so that the operator can staff up or down.

“We’ve moved away from the European-style suites that are labor intensive to American-style kitchen lines that are more flexible staffing-wise and, unlike in the past, we’re not ‘gluing’ equipment to the floor but keeping everything on castors. It’s a messier look but much easier to adjust the equipment layout as menus change.

“We’re recommending that all of our clients think through how and where they assemble and package delivery within their kitchens as well as urging them to build larger hoods than they think they need and install oversized Ansul systems both of which provide the opportunity for even greater flexibility.”

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