When it comes to foodservice equipment care and maintenance, operators tend to focus on the bigger pieces like ovens and refrigerators. This is understandable, given their cost and how important they are to the work in a kitchen.

Operators, though, shouldn’t forget to take care of their smaller pieces of equipment. Units like microwaves, slicers and countertop slushie machines may be smaller and cheaper, but they can still cause major problems when they break down.

According to Joel Melton, service manager for the North Georgia branch of SAM Service, many problems with these countertop units occurs because they are so small. Operators often think if they can find two square feet to fit such a unit, it will work well in that spot. That’s just not the case.

As with larger equipment, these units can have utility and clearance requirements. “An operator may have a new commercial microwave oven that has to be in this particular spot, but they don’t have the proper power to run the microwave in that location. That’s a real problem. For us, it becomes a dance of trying to serve the customer well but also trying to give them the right information,” Melton says.

To avoid such issues, operators should take the time to match the unit to the space where it needs to fit. If a kitchen has a relationship with a service agency, the agency can help with this task by providing information on the kitchen’s utility setup. Once a countertop unit is in place and purchased and working properly, it then needs to be properly maintained.

Here, says Melton, is where many operations fall short. When it comes to day-to-day cleaning and care, tabletop units often draw the short straw. Staff often do not clean the coils on cold-side countertop units as frequently as coils on larger refrigeration units, for instance.

In some situations, this is likely because of how heavy these pieces are and how difficult they are for kitchen staff to move, Melton believes. In others, staff simply aren’t properly trained on how to operate and care for the smaller equipment in a kitchen. “Some of them are simply a ‘turn the knob and it does its job’ setup, but with something like a slicer, setting the depth, cleaning the blade and knowing some of the more particular things about its operation helps you with a better outcome,” Melton says.

This sort of information can be found in the unit’s owner's manual, and many factories post online videos on how to take care of their equipment. Another source of information, Melton adds, are service agencies like his.

Planned maintenance agreements, Melton says, typically cover countertop equipment. During these service calls, field technicians are usually available to train up kitchen staff on proper equipment use and cleaning. This, of course, requires the operator to make the financial commitment to planned maintenance. In the end, though, such a commitment pays off for units big and small.

“With your smaller countertop equipment, there are a lot of small details that can’t get missed. If they are, it lowers the longevity of equipment,” Melton says. “If operators would allow us to do planned maintenance, we could make sure that the equipment and the knowledge of how to treat the equipment by the staff are covered.”