Restaurant Kitchen Equipment List: The Complete Startup Checklist (2026)

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By Marcus Rivera | Last Updated: April 2026 | How We Evaluate

Quick Answer: A full-service restaurant kitchen needs 7 equipment categories: cooking equipment, refrigeration, prep equipment, dishwashing, storage, ventilation, and smallwares. Budget $30,000–$100,000+ for equipment alone depending on concept size. This checklist covers every item you need, with current price ranges from major suppliers.

How to Use This Equipment List

Not every restaurant needs the same equipment. A high-volume burger joint and a fine dining tasting menu concept have completely different kitchen footprints, even if both are cooking food for paying guests. Before you start buying anything, map out your menu first — the equipment you need flows directly from what you’re cooking.

That said, most commercial kitchens share a common foundation. The seven equipment categories in this checklist apply to nearly every restaurant concept, even if the specific items within each category vary. If you’re just getting started with opening a restaurant, use this list as your master planning document and cross off what doesn’t apply to your concept.

Build your equipment list in this order:

1. Cooking equipment — the heart of your kitchen, determines your hood/ventilation requirements
2. Refrigeration — sized to your prep volume and menu complexity
3. Prep equipment — mixers, slicers, processors based on your scratch cooking level
4. Dishwashing — sized to your cover count and service style
5. Storage — shelving, racks, containers based on your inventory volume
6. Ventilation — required by code, sized to your cooking equipment BTU load
7. Smallwares — cookware, knives, plateware, glassware, silverware

New vs. used equipment: Buying quality used restaurant equipment can save you 30–50% compared to new. The restaurant industry has high failure rates, which means a steady supply of lightly used equipment hits the market constantly. That said, not everything should be bought used — we’ll cover exactly which items to buy new vs. used later in this guide. Factor your restaurant startup costs into this decision from the beginning.

Cooking Equipment (The Big Ticket Items)

Your cooking line is the most important equipment decision you’ll make. It drives your hood requirements, your gas/electric capacity needs, and your entire kitchen workflow. Get this right first, then build everything else around it.

Commercial Range: The 6-burner range is the workhorse of most restaurant kitchens. Gas is strongly preferred in professional kitchens for its instant heat response and lower operating cost — most chefs won’t use electric ranges. Look for heavy-duty cast iron grates, standing pilots or electronic ignition, and open or cabinet bases depending on your undercounter storage needs. Vulcan and Garland are the gold standards; Imperial offers similar quality at a slightly lower price point. Budget at least $2,500–$4,000 for a quality unit that will last 15+ years.

Commercial Convection Oven: Nearly every restaurant needs at least one convection oven. Fan-forced hot air means faster, more even cooking than a conventional oven — typically 25% faster cook times and more consistent results. Blodgett is the most trusted name in the industry; their 951 model has been a restaurant standard for decades. If you’re doing serious baking or high-volume roasting, consider going straight to a double-deck unit. Gas vs. electric: gas is cheaper to operate in most markets, but electric is easier to install and produces more even heat for baking.

Commercial Deep Fryer: If your menu has any fried items — fries, chicken, fish, appetizers — you need a dedicated commercial fryer. A 40-lb capacity fryer handles most casual dining volumes. High-volume operations (fast food style) may need 50–60 lb units or multiple fryers. Pitco and Frymaster are the two most reliable brands; both offer excellent filtration systems that extend oil life and reduce operating costs. Gas fryers heat faster and cost less to operate than electric.

Commercial Griddle: Essential for breakfast service, burgers, sandwiches, and any menu with flat-top cooking needs. A 36″ griddle handles most full-service restaurant volumes. Thermostat controls and a grease trough are must-haves. Chrome-plated tops are easier to clean but cost more; steel tops are more durable for heavy use.

Combi Oven: The combi oven is the most versatile piece of cooking equipment available — it combines steam, convection, and combination modes in a single unit. Rational’s SelfCookingCenter is the industry gold standard, capable of roasting, steaming, baking, poaching, and more with programmable precision. The price is steep ($10,000–$25,000), but for fine dining or high-volume operations, a combi oven can replace multiple pieces of equipment and dramatically reduce labor costs through programmable cooking programs.

Refrigeration Equipment

Proper refrigeration is non-negotiable for food safety compliance and kitchen efficiency. You need enough cold storage to maintain ingredient quality without constant deliveries, but not so much that you’re paying to cool dead space. Size your refrigeration to your delivery schedule — if you receive deliveries 3x per week, you need about 2 days of cold storage capacity at any given time.

True Refrigeration is the most trusted brand in commercial refrigeration — their reach-in units are built like tanks and routinely last 15–20 years with minimal maintenance. Turbo Air and Beverage Air offer comparable performance at slightly lower price points and are solid choices for budget-conscious operators.

For most full-service restaurants (50–100 seats), plan on at least one 2-door reach-in refrigerator and one 2-door reach-in freezer as your line refrigeration, plus a walk-in cooler for bulk storage. The walk-in cooler is essential once you’re doing any meaningful volume — running a busy kitchen off reach-ins alone creates constant bottlenecks during service.

Ice machine sizing: Plan for 1–1.5 lbs of ice per customer seat per day for beverage service. A 100-seat restaurant serving lunch and dinner needs roughly 100–150 lbs/day minimum. Hoshizaki is the gold standard for reliability; their crescent-shaped ice is a bartender favorite. Always buy new on ice machines — used units often have mineral scale buildup and failing components that make them more trouble than they’re worth.

Food Prep Equipment

Your prep equipment needs depend heavily on how much scratch cooking you do. A restaurant building everything from scratch needs significantly more prep equipment than one using pre-portioned or semi-prepared ingredients. Be honest about your cooking model before investing in prep equipment.

Hobart mixers are the industry standard — a well-maintained Hobart can last 30+ years in a commercial kitchen. The 20-quart model handles most restaurant needs; bakeries and high-volume pasta operations may need 40- or 60-quart units. Robot Coupe owns the food processor category — their R2N is a workhorse found in professional kitchens worldwide.

Work tables are easy to overlook but critical to kitchen efficiency. Plan for enough linear prep space that two cooks can work comfortably side by side without crowding each other. Stainless steel is required in commercial kitchens — no wood work surfaces in professional food service environments. Budget for at least 6–8 feet of prep table space for every two cooks working simultaneously.

Dishwashing Equipment

Your dish pit is the unglamorous backbone of your operation. A slow, disorganized dish pit creates backlogs that shut down service. Size your dishwashing equipment to your cover count and service pace — undersizing here is a common and costly mistake.

• Commercial Dish Machine (undercounter) — $2,000–$5,000: Brands include Hobart and Jackson. Best for low-to-medium volume operations (under 150 covers/day). Cycle time of 90–120 seconds per rack. These compact units fit under standard counter height and are NSF and Energy Star certified on most models.
• Commercial Dish Machine (door-type) — $4,000–$8,000: The step up for higher volume. Door-type machines accept full-size dish racks and can process 40–60 racks per hour. If you’re doing 200+ covers per meal period, you need a door-type machine minimum.
• 3-Compartment Sink — $400–$1,200: Required by health code in all 50 states. Used for wash, rinse, and sanitize of items that can’t go through the dish machine. Must be NSF-certified and properly sized for your largest pots and pans.
• Hand Wash Sink — $150–$400: Required by code at every food prep station and at the entrance to the kitchen. This is non-negotiable — health inspectors will cite you immediately if these aren’t in place and properly accessible.
• Pre-Rinse Spray Unit — $150–$400: Mounted adjacent to the dish machine, used to knock food off dishes before loading. A quality pre-rinse unit dramatically increases dish machine efficiency and reduces chemical costs.

Storage & Shelving

Proper storage is a food safety and efficiency issue, not just an organizational one. All food storage in a commercial kitchen must be NSF-certified, off the floor by at least 6 inches, and organized to prevent cross-contamination. Your storage needs scale directly with your menu complexity and delivery frequency.

• NSF Wire Shelving Units — $50–$200 each: The workhorse of commercial kitchen storage. A typical restaurant kitchen needs 6–10 units across the dry storage, walk-in cooler, and walk-in freezer. Chrome-plated steel is standard; epoxy-coated shelving is better for wet environments (walk-ins). Metro and Regency are reliable brands at different price points.
• Dunnage Racks (floor storage) — $80–$200: Heavy-duty floor platforms that keep bulk items (bags of flour, cases of produce) elevated off the floor per health code. Essential in any dry storage area.
• Food Storage Containers (full set) — $200–$500: Cambro is the industry standard for food storage containers — their polycarbonate containers are virtually indestructible and can go from walk-in to line to dishwasher. Budget for a full set of sizes: 2-quart, 4-quart, 6-quart, 8-quart, 12-quart, and 18-quart minimum, plus lids for each.
• Speed Racks (sheet pan holders) — $100–$300 each: Mobile racks that hold full-size sheet pans. Essential for bakery operations and any kitchen doing volume baking or roasting. Look for NSF-certified aluminum construction with locking casters.

Ventilation & Safety

Commercial kitchen ventilation is required by code for all cooking equipment that produces grease-laden vapors — which is essentially every piece of cooking equipment on your line. This isn’t optional, and cutting corners here can prevent your restaurant from passing inspection or, worse, create a serious fire hazard.

• Commercial Hood System — $1,000–$5,000 for the hood: Installation adds $2,000–$8,000 depending on hood length, ductwork routing, and local code requirements. Type I hoods (for grease-producing equipment) are required over ranges, fryers, griddles, charbroilers, and combi ovens. Type II hoods (for heat and moisture only) are used over dishwashers and non-grease equipment. Your hood must be properly sized to cover all cooking equipment with appropriate overhang (typically 6″ on all sides).
• Fire Suppression System (Ansul) — $1,500–$3,000 + installation: Required by code under any Type I hood. The Ansul system automatically discharges fire suppressant if temperatures exceed safe levels. This must be installed, inspected, and maintained by a licensed contractor — do not attempt to DIY this. Budget for semi-annual inspections as an ongoing operating cost.
• Exhaust Fan: Typically included with the hood system. Properly sized to achieve required air changes and grease removal efficiency.
• Make-Up Air Unit — $500–$2,000: Replaces the air exhausted by your hood system. Without adequate make-up air, your kitchen creates negative pressure that can cause back-drafting, combustion problems with gas equipment, and uncomfortable working conditions. Often overlooked by first-time operators — don’t skip this.

Work with a licensed commercial kitchen designer or HVAC contractor who specializes in restaurants for your ventilation system. The upfront cost of professional design pays for itself in avoiding costly corrections after inspection failures.

Smallwares & Supplies

Smallwares are the tools your cooks use every day — knives, cookware, cutting boards, pans, and all the handhelds that make service possible. These are often underbudgeted by first-time operators who focus on the big equipment purchases. A well-equipped smallwares setup for a 60-seat restaurant runs $2,000–$5,000+.

• Cookware set (pots, pans, sauté pans) — $500–$2,000: Stainless steel construction with aluminum core for even heat distribution. You need a full range of sizes: 1-quart through 20-quart stock pots, 8″ through 14″ sauté pans, sauce pans, braziers, and rondeau pans depending on your menu.
• Knives (full set) — $300–$1,000: Global, Victorinox, and Wüsthof are the three most trusted brands in professional kitchens. You need at minimum: 10″ chef’s knife, 8″ slicer, boning knife, paring knife, and bread knife — multiplied by the number of cooks on your line.
• Cutting boards (color-coded HACCP set) — $100–$300: HACCP color coding prevents cross-contamination: red for raw meat, yellow for poultry, green for produce, blue for seafood, white for dairy/bread. NSF-certified polyethylene boards only — no wood in commercial kitchens.
• Hotel pans (full set GN 1/1, 1/2, 1/3) — $200–$500: Standard Gastronorm pans used for everything from cooking to storage to steam table service. You’ll need multiple sizes in 2″ and 4″ depths minimum.
• Sheet pans (18 x 26″) — $15–$25 each; need 20–30: Half-size (13×18″) and full-size (18×26″) sheet pans are used for everything from roasting to proofing to storage. You can never have too many. Buy heavy-gauge aluminum — thin pans warp under high heat.
• Thermometers (instant-read) — $20–$80 each: Thermoworks makes the most accurate and durable instant-read thermometers for professional kitchens. You need at least one per cook — these are essential for food safety compliance and proper cooking. Their Thermapen is the industry gold standard.
• Mixing bowls set — $80–$200: Stainless steel, 1-quart through 20-quart. You’ll use these constantly for prep, mise en place, and service.
• Ladles, tongs, spatulas, turners set — $100–$300: Budget for a full set of handtools: 2-oz through 12-oz ladles, 9″ through 16″ tongs, offset spatulas, perforated and solid turners, and slotted spoons.
• Plateware (per 60 covers) — $300–$800: Budget for 1.5–2x your cover count to account for breakage. Material and style depend on your concept — coupe plates for fine dining, wide-rim plates for casual, share plates for family-style.
• Glassware (per 60 covers) — $200–$500: Same 1.5–2x rule. Water glasses, wine glasses, and rocks glasses at minimum. If you have a full bar, multiply your glass budget significantly.
• Silverware (per 60 covers) — $200–$600: Dinner fork, salad fork, dinner knife, teaspoon, soup spoon — 1.5–2x cover count of each. Match your silver weight to your concept: heavy 18/10 stainless for fine dining, lighter for casual.

Don’t forget your POS system — while not kitchen equipment, it’s a critical piece of infrastructure that affects kitchen workflow through ticket printing, KDS integration, and order management.

Total Equipment Budget by Restaurant Type

These budget ranges reflect equipment only — they don’t include installation, smallwares in some cases, or front-of-house furniture and fixtures. Use these as planning benchmarks, not firm quotes.

These ranges assume a mix of new and quality used equipment. Buying all-new will push your budget 30–50% higher. Financing is widely available through equipment leasing companies and SBA loans — many operators lease major equipment to preserve cash flow for operations.

New vs Used Equipment: When to Buy Each

The restaurant equipment resale market is robust, and savvy operators can build quality kitchens at 40–60 cents on the dollar by sourcing the right items used. But some equipment should always be purchased new — cutting corners here creates reliability and safety risks that can cost far more than the savings.

Always buy new:

• Refrigeration: Used compressors are the number one failure point in restaurant kitchens. A failed walk-in or reach-in during service can cost thousands in lost product and revenue. Buy new refrigeration and get the warranty.
• Ice machines: Heavy mineral scale buildup, failing components, and sanitation concerns make used ice machines a false economy. They’re also a top source of health code violations. Buy new.
• Fire suppression systems: Must be new, properly installed, and inspected. No exceptions.
• Ventilation hoods: Hoods must be properly sized and certified for your specific equipment load. Used hoods often don’t fit your configuration and can’t be certified for code compliance.

Safe to buy used:

• Ranges and charbroilers: Gas ranges are simple, robust pieces of equipment. A used Vulcan or Garland in good condition will give you 10+ more years of service.
• Convection ovens: Blodgett and Vulcan ovens are built to last — a used unit from a reputable seller is typically a solid investment.
• Fryers: Like ranges, fryers are mechanically simple. Inspect for burner condition and evidence of proper maintenance.
• Prep tables and work tables: Stainless steel doesn’t wear out. Used prep tables and wire shelving are almost always a good value.
• Mixers: A used Hobart mixer in working condition is one of the best buys in restaurant equipment. They last forever.

Where to buy used equipment:

• Restaurant equipment auctions (BidSpotter, Heritage Global Partners)
• Restaurant Equipment World
• Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace (local, inspect before buying)
• Local restaurant equipment dealers who sell trade-ins
• Liquidation sales of closing restaurants

Frequently Asked Questions

What equipment do I need to open a restaurant?

At minimum, you need cooking equipment (range, oven, fryer as applicable to your menu), refrigeration (reach-in refrigerator and freezer, plus walk-in cooler for most concepts), a dishwashing setup (3-compartment sink and dish machine), a commercial hood with fire suppression, and the smallwares to operate your kitchen. The exact list depends on your menu and concept. Use this checklist as your starting framework and eliminate what doesn’t apply to your specific restaurant type.

How much does restaurant equipment cost?

Equipment costs range from $15,000 for a basic food truck setup to $200,000+ for a full fine dining kitchen. Most full-service casual restaurants budget $50,000–$100,000 for kitchen equipment, not including installation, smallwares, or FOH furniture. Buying quality used equipment can reduce these figures by 30–50%. For full budget planning, see our guide on restaurant startup costs.

Should I buy new or used restaurant equipment?

The best approach is a mix. Always buy new refrigeration, ice machines, and fire suppression systems — the reliability and warranty value outweigh the savings on used. For cooking equipment like ranges, ovens, fryers, and mixers, quality used equipment from reputable sellers is typically a smart financial decision that can save 40–60% compared to new. Prep tables, shelving, and smallwares are almost always better to buy used when available.

What equipment do I need for a commercial kitchen by law?

By law (which varies by state and municipality but has common requirements across the US), you need: a 3-compartment sink, hand wash sinks at all prep stations, NSF-certified food contact surfaces, proper refrigeration at correct temperatures (40°F or below), a commercial hood system over all grease-producing equipment, a fire suppression system under Type I hoods, and a licensed commercial dishwasher or equivalent sanitizing setup. Work with your local health department and fire marshal during the build-out process to confirm specific requirements for your jurisdiction.

What is the most important piece of restaurant equipment?

The refrigeration system, particularly your walk-in cooler, is arguably the most critical piece of equipment in any restaurant. Refrigeration failure during service creates immediate food safety violations, costs thousands in spoiled product, and can shut down your operation entirely. After refrigeration, your cooking range is the most important piece — it’s the heart of your kitchen that everything else is built around. When budgeting, don’t cut corners on either of these two categories.

Related Guides

• How to Open a Restaurant: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide
• How Much Does It Cost to Open a Restaurant in 2026?
• Best Restaurant POS Systems of 2026: Reviewed & Ranked