Walked through a commissary kitchen in Austin and it changed my mind about open shelving

I always thought open shelving was just a trendy look for Instagram, but I saw this setup at a shared kitchen space on Airport Blvd where they had all their sheet pans and hotel pans out in the open. They said it saved them about 10 minutes per service because nobody was digging through cabinets. Has anyone else tried ditching closed storage in a busy kitchen?

3 comments

3 Comments

ninabutler1mo ago

Hang on a SECOND, ten minutes seems high for just grabbing sheet pans. Most pro kitchens I've seen with open shelving still have you pulling out a whole stack to get the bottom one, so the time saved is really just not opening a cabinet door. It definitely cuts down on clutter and people bumping into each other though, that part is REAL.

abby3081mo ago

The ten minutes thing is probably also about not having to play kitchen Tetris, which is a skill I definitely do not have. The other day I spent a solid three minutes just trying to find a specific hotel pan that was buried under three sheet pans and a colander, and I'm pretty sure a prep cook was silently judging me. Open shelving at least forces you to keep things neat, or else everyone can see your mess, which is honestly terrifying. Maybe the real time save is just not having to wrestle with a cabinet door while your hands are full of hot oil or something. I'd probably still manage to knock an entire stack of sheet pans onto the floor, but that's my personal disaster energy. Have any of you tried it and just ended up with a bigger mess?

the_elizabeth18d ago

Respectfully, I gotta push back on you @ninabutler. That ten minute thing isn't about grabbing one pan, it's about digging for the exact size you need when every rack is a jigsaw puzzle. My problem with open shelving is you trade cabinet Tetris for dust Tetris because now everything gets greasy and you're wiping down pans before you even use them. Plus, in a busy kitchen, someone always bumps a stack and you get that loud metal crash that makes everyone stop and stare. I've seen places where the open shelves just become a landing spot for random half-used bags of flour and spilled spices, so the mess is still there but now it's on display for the health inspector.