The pinch in global economics will be a good motivator for fine-tuning our budget-savvy businesses.  I hope it will funnel through restaurants as well.

Commercial kitchens are a heafty contributor to an incredible amount of waste.  I have worked in kitchens in mexico, the united states, canada, switzerland, and they all leave behind a messy trail at the end of the night. The restaurant industry has such a small profit margin hovering around it, you would think that restauranteurs would be looking for every possible way to cut back.  But people think that a restaurant is a numbers and cents game, when it may be more about making sense of your business and what happens inside.

Food gets thrown out.  Ovens, salamanders, gas burners, and hot water runs all day long.  The board of health demands that you use harsh chemicals as cleaning products that just get poured down the drain.

That is only the start of it all.  American commercial kitchen equiptment runs at thirty percent efficiency.  Seventy percent of the heat from a pot of soup sitting on a stovetop burner gets sucked up through a huge stainless steel vent that you probably paid at least ten thousand dollars for.  And those hood vents suck air at one thousand three hundred cubic feet per minute.  But there is not even near this much air in a normal kitchen.  So, your hood vent ends up sucking air from the dining room.  But in the winter one has to heat the dining room in order to keep the guests comfortable and happy.  So you end up with this absurd scernerio, where your paying for hot air in the dining room, only to pay for it to be sucked back out into the cold.  ConEd (the electric company) might be stoked about this game, but your wallet wont be.

Induction burners, pellet stoves, brick ovens, and pressure cookers are some good efficient cooking options to do a little research on.