One of the reasons some businesses hold off doing a refurbishment is due to the potential loss of income or undue disruption whilst it is taking place. However, you don’t need to completely shut down your operation or hospitality business to update it. Obviously, this depends on the kind of business you are and the type of refurbishment you require, so we assess and advise each job on a client-by-client basis.

Here are a few ideas and examples to help you consider the best option for you:-

• We know of a high street Italian client who closed its restaurant whilst a kitchen refit took place, but they kept the takeaway and delivery side of the business running by using a dark kitchen. This allows you to still generate some income during the closure.

• When we work with educational establishments they tend to do kitchen and dining area refurbishments during one of the longer holidays. This would either be the summer break for large jobs or at Easter if it was something smaller. With timescales being tight on projects like this, and lots of schools, colleges or universities looking for work to be completed during these key times, it is important you plan ahead and book this kind of work in as early as possible.

• For some businesses, such as in the education, care or hospital sectors, where it isn’t feasible to close down a catering business, we can bring in a mobile catering unit. We recently did this at Northwood Nursing Home and it allowed the client to continue providing meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week. There are some key considerations for us when exploring this option. The client would need a suitable space for it to be located close by and it needs to be connected to key services such as electricity and water as well as have suitable drainage. It’s ideal for those who have a car park facility, so it does work well for schools and care homes.

• We can also explore you using temporary external caterers. One of our options on the nursing home project was to create a small preparation and wash-up space and then use outside caterers to produce the meals. We would have screened off this area and put in a fridge and freezer as well as provide basic functionality for washing up and making hot drinks.

• In the restaurant and bar sector, where a full closure for refurbishment is needed, we recommend these take place during quieter times. This could be in January after a busy festive season when fewer people are looking to go out due to finances and poorer weather.

If you would like to chat to us about any of the options above and see how we can help you with the design, supply and build of your kitchen or catering facilities just quickly fill in our contact us form and one of our team will be in touch.