Restaurants & Food Service
A restaurant's entire MEP story is concentrated in a few hundred square feet of kitchen, where exhaust, make-up air, grease, and gas all converge. We deliver construction-ready kitchen and dining MEP that passes plan check, holds its air balance with the doors open, and keeps the dining room comfortable while the line runs hot.
Where the Kitchen Drives the Design.
Hood capture, make-up air, grease, and gas — get those four right and the rest of the building falls into place; get one wrong and you feel it at every health inspection and every dinner rush. We design kitchens that hold their air balance, satisfy NFPA 96 and ASHRAE 154 capture-and-containment, and clear plan check — coordinated with your kitchen consultant and sealed by the licensed engineer of record on your project.
Kitchen Exhaust & Make-Up Air
The capture-and-containment systems that make or break a commercial kitchen.
- Type I grease and Type II heat/steam hood selection and grease-duct routing per IMC Chapter 5, NFPA 96, and ASHRAE 154 capture-and-containment
- Listed welded grease duct with access panels at every change of direction and along horizontal runs per NFPA 96
- Make-up air tempered and balanced to the hoods so doors don't whistle and the dining room doesn't freeze
- Demand-control kitchen ventilation (DCKV) on exhaust systems over 5,000 cfm per ASHRAE 90.1 / IECC
- Dining-room comfort zoning held separate from the kitchen's negative pressure
- Odor and grease-effluent control kept off the dining room and neighboring tenants by design
Grease, Gas & Plumbing
Documented to the plumbing code, the health code, and the local sewer authority.
- Grease interceptor / GRD sizing to PDI G101, ASME A112.14.3, or the local sewer authority's FOG method, placed for service access
- Natural-gas and LP piping with regulators sized and reconciled against the equipment package line by line per NFPA 54 / IFGC
- Floor sinks, floor drains, and indirect waste for ice, prep, and warewashing per the IPC/UPC and health code
- Dish-line water heating coordinated with a booster heater for the 180°F sanitizing rinse
- Backflow prevention on carbonators, dishmachines, and combi-oven connections
Refrigeration & Walk-Ins
Heat rejection, condensate, and condenser air planned, not improvised.
- Walk-in cooler and freezer condensing-unit heat rejection and condenser-air coordination
- Refrigeration line-set and rack coordination with the foodservice equipment package
- Insulated condensate and defrost-drain routing with freeze protection per code
- Refrigeration heat load and make-up-air impact carried into the space cooling calc
- Low-GWP refrigerant transition (A2L) ventilation and detection considerations per ASHRAE 15
Kitchen Electrical & Life Safety
Power and interlocks the line cooks and the inspector both rely on.
- Kitchen equipment power, connection schedules, and GFCI/receptacle layout per the NEC
- Hood fire-suppression interlocks — shunt trips and gas-valve shutoff on activation per NFPA 96 / NFPA 17A
- Make-up air and exhaust fan shutdown/run sequencing on suppression discharge
- Dining lighting, dimming, and emergency egress lighting per the IBC/IFC
- Patio, drive-thru, menu-board, and exterior signage circuits
Plan Check & Coordination
Health department and fire marshal addressed up front, not at the counter.
- Health-department and fire-marshal review requirements built into the documents
- Gas-load and equipment-utility reconciliation against the kitchen consultant's foodservice cut sheets
- BIM coordination of hood, grease duct, gas, and ceiling utilities above a tight kitchen
- Air-balance schedule and exhaust/make-up CFM table prepared for the balancing contractor
- Tenant-shell-to-restaurant conversion: verifying reserved shaft, gas, and grease capacity
Quick answers about how we deliver design support for this sector.
Yes — Type I grease and Type II heat hood selection with grease-duct routing per IMC Chapter 5, NFPA 96, and ASHRAE 154 capture-and-containment. We temper and balance the make-up air to the hoods so the kitchen holds its air balance with the doors open and the dining room stays comfortable, and we route listed welded duct with the access panels NFPA 96 requires for cleaning. On exhaust over 5,000 cfm we add DCKV to meet ASHRAE 90.1.
Per your local sewer authority's FOG method, since interceptor sizing and approval are jurisdiction-specific. Where the code defers to it, we size hydromechanical interceptors and grease-removal devices to PDI G101 or ASME A112.14.3 on fixture flow rate, and gravity interceptors on retention time and storage. We place the unit for service access and coordinate it with the kitchen waste, floor sinks, and floor drains.
Yes. We reconcile the connected gas load against the kitchen consultant's equipment cut sheets line by line, then size the piping and regulators to match per NFPA 54 / IFGC — so there are no surprises at rough-in or inspection. We also confirm the utility meter and service capacity early, since an undersized gas service is an expensive thing to discover late.
We design and coordinate the electrical interlocks — shunt trips that drop power to cooking equipment, gas-valve shutoff, and exhaust/make-up fan sequencing on suppression activation per NFPA 96 and NFPA 17A — with the suppression vendor's wet-chemical system. We document them on the drawings so the fire marshal sees a complete, coordinated life-safety scheme rather than a field improvisation.
That is the point of the set. We address health-department and fire-marshal requirements in the documents up front — air balance, indirect waste, floor sinks, grease interceptor, gas, and hood suppression — so you walk into review with the answers already on the sheet. Working behind your seal, we produce a permit-ready set that anticipates the AHJ's plan-check comments instead of reacting to them.
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