How to Open a Mexican Restaurant
Mexican restaurants are an oasis of celebration after a long day's work; a brief vacation spot for a Saturday afternoon; a lunch spot for the hurried and hungry. Mexican food is the third most popular type of cuisine in the USA, beating out hamburgers.1 Mexican restaurants range from casual to fine dining, food trucks to dining rooms, traditional to fusions, with combinations and variations as numerous as there are restaurants. But have you ever dreamed of starting a Mexican restaurant of your own?
Opening a Mexican restaurant, or indeed any other style of restaurant, is a mammoth undertaking. The owner must manage a hundred different aspects of the business for it to be run at all, and that's before you start generating a customer base. This guide will go over some of the specific equipment items you might need when starting a Mexican restaurant – for more general information, check out our guide to opening your own restaurant.
Table of Contents
We've assembled a Mexican restaurant kitchen equipment list to help you choose what you need in your kitchen, in a bar, and to outfit your dining area so you can be certain you haven't missed anything when the doors open.
How to Start a Mexican Restaurant: The Kitchen
The kitchen should be the foundation of everything else about your business, because if the kitchen isn't successful, no amount of decoration and marketing can overcome it. To outfit your kitchen, you'll need to know what you're serving. Make a menu ahead of time with all the dishes you'd like to offer and then work backwards through that list to see what type of cooking equipment you'll need. Of course, you should consider the mainstays of restaurant cooking: griddles, fryers, steamers, and charbroilers, but Mexican restaurants have some specific needs that must be met as well.
- Tilt skillets: Tilt skillets, or braising pans, are incredibly versatile and enable you to cook massive quantities of food to keep up with demand. They can braise, grill, steam, and boil all in one piece, which gives you the capacity to cook a wide range of different foods.
- Tortilla steamers: Tortilla steamers heat already cooked tortillas and other dishes with steam to keep them pliable without drying them out. This makes tortillas easier to work with, as they don't crack or break, enabling you to serve them warm and tasty.
- Tortilla grills: Tortilla grills also help you serve warm tortillas, which taste better and wrap easier than cold tortillas. Tortilla pans are thin, flat pans that help you heat the tortillas, but you'll need a separate heat source.
- Salamander broilers: Salamanders are small heating units that can cook, finish, or hold a dish until it's taken to the customer. Salamanders often are used with fajitas to give the whole plate the sizzling, popping effect that guests love.
- Rice cookers: If you plan on serving rice alongside your entrees, a commercial rice cooker will be necessary. These enable you to cook large quantities of rice and other grains without taking up cooking space on your range. They also shut off when the rice is done, so you won't risk overcooking it.
- Tortilla presses: Tortilla presses help you make tortillas in house. These flatten the dough to the appropriate tortilla shape, which you can then grill or fry.
Paella pans: Paella pans are needed to cook authentic paella. They have a wide, shallow bottom that is traditionally placed over an open fire, but in modern restaurants usually are placed on a range burner or hot plate.
Opening a Mexican Restaurant: The Bar
Many restaurateurs complement their kitchen with a small bar to expand their sources of income. Bars need all manner of blenders, shakers, and caddies, but as above, Mexican restaurants have a few pieces that are specifically necessary. For everything else, consult our opening a bar guide.
Margarita Supplies
Your Mexican restaurant bar can serve whatever you think your customers might like (beer is a common favorite), but most customers will expect you to offer margaritas. Like most alcoholic drinks, margaritas can make a decent profit margin, but they also encourage repeat customers and repeat orders. Margaritas are highly customizable, so you can offer specialty house margaritas that make your business stand out from the competitors. You'll need a few things to offer margaritas:
- Choose either bar blenders or margarita machines. Opt for a margarita machine if you'll make high volumes of margaritas.
- You'll need margarita glasses in which to serve drinks and glass rimmers to coat the glasses in salt or sugar.
Opening a Mexican Restaurant: The Dining Room
Choosing the right Mexican restaurant tableware is often a matter of opinion. Select the dinnerware, silverware, and drinkware that fits your aesthetic and go from there, considering durability, attractiveness, and price point. As above, there are a few areas that are of specific usefulness to a Mexican restaurant, which we've highlighted here.
Sizzling platters help you serve eye-catching, mouth-watering fajitas.
Salsa and tortilla chip servers enable you to offer chips and salsa to every guest.
Trivets and underliners protect your tables and customers from hot plates and platters.
Taco holders keep your tacos upright and prevent food from spilling out.
Starting any restaurant is a massive undertaking, with each genre and style having its own challenges. Hopefully, the items listed here will help you outfit your new restaurant for success!
Resources
- Menu Type Popularity. CHD-Expert. Accessed May 2021.
