Restaurants are a staple of our everyday lives. They are present on every street corner of every town. The beating heart of every restaurant is its kitchen. The cooks in the kitchen are ultimately responsible for getting you that avocado bacon burger or the pasta marinara you’ve been craving. However, anyone in the food service industry knows that any commercial restaurant is only as good as the productivity of its cooks. Many factors are involved in keeping the kitchen staff productive. One quick and cost-effective method of keeping the kitchen a safe and productive area is through the use of rubber restaurant mats.
According to the National Restaurant Association, there are currently about 990,000 restaurant locations in the US, with an estimated 13.5 million employees in total. To maintain an economic presence this big, restaurants have to be doing something to keep their productivity up (http://www.restaurant.org/News-Research/Research/Facts-at-a-Glance). Floor mats for kitchen areas can go a long way in keeping a restaurant kitchen floor safe and comfortable for the people present in it.
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You may be wondering as to how exactly rubber restaurant mats can help your restaurant. The two key ways it does this is by providing anti-fatigue comfort for those standing in the kitchen for long periods of time, and by enhancing the safety of people in moist and slick conditions. Most restaurants, if not all, already employ some kind of safety flooring in their kitchen areas.
Rubber is perhaps the most ideal material to have as a commercial kitchen mat. Restaurant mats can be made of different types of rubber that have different specific properties. For example, nitrile rubber is used in mats that are expected to be in areas with a lot of oils and greases. Overall, the different types of rubber possess similar general physical characteristics that make any of them great for use as floor mats for kitchen areas.
Firstly, rubber is great for providing anti-fatigue comfort. Restaurant kitchens are work areas where people are expected to be on their feet for extended periods of time. Eventually, people will start to get tired of standing around. Pressure builds up in the feet and can move up into the lower back area. This causes great discomfort and can reduce worker productivity. This is generally known as fatigue. If you have a rubber anti-fatigue kitchen mat in place, your workers will be much more comfortable on their feet. The rubber is soft enough to provide cushion and will act to relieve any built-up pressure in the joints and ankles. Some restaurant mats are specifically designed for this purpose, with some being designed with special surface textures or enhanced thickness gauges to allow to better anti-fatigue comfort.
However, there is another way that a commercial kitchen mat can come in handy: safety. It is no secret that kitchens can be messy places. These areas see the presence of a lot of loose liquids and solid particles. It can end up making a restaurant kitchen floor very slippery and hazardous. Rubber restaurant mats are ideal for safeguarding these areas. Rubber is a material that naturally comes with a high degree of friction. This gives better stability and traction for the feet on top of the rubber mat. Some floor mats for kitchen areas come with special surface textures that are meant to further enhance rubber’s already considerable grip. These surface designs help stabilize your footing in wet or otherwise dangerous areas.
An anti-fatigue kitchen mat can help keep you safe and comfortable, but it can also help keep things a bit cleaner. Some restaurant mats are available with drainage holes or channels on their bodies. These holes do exactly what they are designed to do. They drain through excess liquids that would otherwise build up on the surface of these mats. They can even filter through solid particles that are small enough to fit through the drainage holes. This feature greatly complements rubber’s anti-slip traction capabilities, so definitely consider restaurant mats that come with drainage features.
There is no denying the benefits of having a rubber commercial kitchen mat on your restaurant kitchen floor. Whether you have a need for an anti-slip or an anti-fatigue kitchen mat, chances are that there are mats on the market that offer both features. Your restaurant needs to remain productive to be in business. The kitchen staff is key to this and their work conditions should be safe and comfortable enough to allow them to be productive. Rubber restaurant mats are an easy-to-install and cost-effective method to ensure this!