Restaurants & Food Service
A restaurant's MEP story is largely concentrated in the kitchen, where exhaust, make-up air, grease, and gas all converge. We deliver construction-ready kitchen and dining MEP designed to clear plan check, hold its air balance at the design operating conditions, and keep 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 goes more smoothly; get one wrong and you can feel it at health inspection and in the dinner rush. We design kitchens to hold their specified air balance, address NFPA 96 and ASHRAE 154 capture-and-containment, and carry the documentation plan check asks for — 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
- Continuously welded or listed factory-built 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
- Kitchen exhaust over 5,000 cfm handled per ASHRAE 90.1 / IECC — DCKV, transfer air, or energy recovery, as the adopted edition permits
- Dining-room comfort zoning held separate from the kitchen's negative pressure
- Odor and grease-effluent control designed to protect the dining room and neighboring tenants
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 final sanitizing rinse on high-temperature machines (165°F on single-temperature stationary-rack machines) — chemical-sanitizing machines generally don’t need the booster
- Backflow prevention on carbonators, dishmachines, and combi-oven connections, plus premise protection at the service — an RPZ assembly where the water purveyor requires it
- Water heating sized by meals-per-hour or the fixture method, with the dish machine’s rinse demand included
Walk-In Coordination
Walk-in power and condensate drainage coordinated to the supplier's equipment locations, not improvised.
- Walk-in cooler and freezer refrigeration, including condensing-unit heat rejection and locations, by the walk-in supplier; we coordinate power to the supplier-selected equipment locations
- 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, with 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
- Exhaust-fan operation and shutdown of make-up air supplied internally to the hood on suppression discharge, sequenced per NFPA 96 and the system listings
- 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
- What we need to start: the kitchen equipment schedule with model numbers, hood cut sheets with listed exhaust and make-up-air rates, connected gas and electrical loads per item, the walk-in package, the local FOG/sewer authority's interceptor method, and the health department's plan-review checklist
Second-Generation Spaces
Reusing a former restaurant saves money only if what was left behind still works for the new kitchen.
- Review of the existing hoods, grease duct, and exhaust fans against NFPA 96 and the new cooking line, from the record drawings and field data you provide
- Grease interceptor capacity checked against the new menu and meals per hour
- Gas service and meter capacity checked against the new connected load
- Electrical service and panel headroom checked against the new equipment schedule
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 size and temper the make-up air against the hood exhaust so the kitchen is designed to hold its air balance at the design operating conditions and keep the dining room comfortable, and we route continuously welded steel or listed factory-built grease duct with the cleanout access NFPA 96 requires. Where total kitchen hood exhaust exceeds 5,000 cfm, we hold each hood to the maximum exhaust rates in ASHRAE 90.1 or the IECC and apply the measure the adopted edition requires — demand-controlled kitchen ventilation, transfer air, or energy recovery.
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 — to minimize surprises at rough-in and inspection.
We design and coordinate the electrical interlocks — shunt trips that drop heat-producing electrical power to the protected 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.
Sometimes. The hood has to be listed for the new cooking line (or, if unlisted, meet the IMC construction and exhaust-rate requirements for it), the grease duct has to be continuous, liquid-tight, and cleanable with the clearances NFPA 96 requires, and the fan has to deliver the airflow the hood listing or the IMC calls for. We review what is there from the record drawings and field information you provide, compare it with the new equipment schedule, and document what stays, what is modified, and what is replaced — the AHJ makes the final call at inspection. The licensed engineer of record on your project reviews and seals the set.