Search Restaurant Business
Wendy’s on Tuesday unveiled a new kitchen design that the company promises improves throughput by 50% while cutting back on the amount of walking its workers do just to fetch some orders.
The Dublin, Ohio-based burger chain’s new “Global Next Gen High Capacity Kitchen” features several innovations designed to increase throughput and improve life for the chain’s employees and customers.
The kitchen, which follows the chain’s Global Next Gen design that Wendy’s says can handle 400 times the digital orders of a typical location, comes as the burger chain is pushing aggressive growth. The company said it expects 200 of the High Capacity Kitchens to be built by the end of next year.
The kitchen design is targeted at restaurants with the “highest customer demand.” The kitchen increases output by nearly 50% when compared with a typical “Next Gen” restaurant, the company said.
It features a dual-sided kitchen layout and increased capacity for equipment. There are additional sandwich production areas, more prep areas and dedicated space for digital orders.
The kitchen design also reduces travel distances for crew members, with a strategically placed front counter and drive-thru and additional storage capacity to improve overall flow and speed of service. Workers who need to walk longer distances to grab orders or restock drink cups can slow service in the drive-thru, for instance.
The kitchen also incorporates innovations from the chain’s Global Next Gen prototype, such as self-order kiosks, pick-up windows and parking spaces for delivery drivers and more technology integration throughout the restaurant. 
Wendy’s new restaurant design features self-order kiosks and pickup shelves.
“The new high-capacity kitchen design maximizes kitchen throughput for restaurants with the highest volume using Global Next Gen design innovation as the foundation for success,” Abigail Pringle, president of international and chief development officer for Wendy’s, said in a statement.
Wendy’s is eager to build new units in the U.S. and internationally, believing that its performance should be worthy of a larger number of restaurants. It has signed key development deals in places such as Australia. But it has been hampered somewhat at home by permitting delays that have lengthened development timelines.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.
Get today’s need-to-know restaurant industry intelligence. Sign up to receive texts from Restaurant Business on news and insights that matter to your brand.
The latest from Restaurant Business, sent straight to your inbox.
The Latest
More on this Topic
The Bottom Line: Some executives of franchise chains are also franchisees. “I feel the pain when I make a decision to bring something in.”
The Bottom Line: Fast-food restaurants will have to pay $20 an hour under a compromise reached this week. How will operators pay for it?
After years of steady decline, the fast-casual brand appears to be in a death spiral of unpaid bills, legal filings and angry customers. Even in a world as forgiving as restaurants, it may be impossible for the chain to come back.
Winsight is a leading B2B information services company focused on the food and beverage industry, providing insight and market intelligence to business leaders in every channel consumers buy food and beverage – convenience stores, grocery retailing, restaurants and noncommercial foodservice – through media, events, data products, advisory services, and trade shows.
Do not sell my personal infoPrivacy PolicyContact UsRSS
Copyright © Winsight, LLC. 2023
