When disaster strikes, returning to normal operations is no easy task. With a long process of gaining permits, designing, and reconstructing, a kitchen is usually incapable of reopening swiftly.
But with the help of Kitchens To Go, one determined Manhattan hospital defeated the odds that faced them following Hurricane Sandy. Sandy, the largest Atlantic storm on record, tore through the East Coast in October of 2012, damaging countless homes and buildings. Among them was a Manhattan-based teaching hospital whose flooded kitchen and $1 million in damages required immediate patient evacuation.
Within just two months after its destruction, the hospital reopened after the installation of a temporary double PAC (plug and cook) mobile kitchen on its roof. (The hospital was not identified at the request of Kitchens To Go).
This facility has enabled the preparation and distribution of both pre-made and fresh-made meals to its entire hospital community.
“We designed the interior of this PAC kitchen to be flexible for the hospital, so that it would be able to both reheat prepared foods from a local supplier as well as produce fresh-prepared food, serving the hospital’s needs on a daily basis and ensuring that it was able to maintain the high standards that the hospital’s food and nutrition services team has established,” said Ralph Goldbeck, AIA, and partner, Kitchens To Go.
Construction is scheduled for completion in August; until then, Kitchens to Go is providing this Manhattan hospital with a solution to what seemed like an impossible situation.
Based out of Naperville, IL, Kitchens to Go is considered a leader in both mobile and modular kitchen solutions, assisting numerous commercial food service operations across the country. Through the delivery of mobile kitchens to organizations like the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army, the company has been able to assist in disaster relief efforts including Hurricane Katrina, Sandy, and the 2011 Joplin, MO tornadoes. For more information, visit http://kitchens-2-go.com/.
