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Looking For A Restaurant Term

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Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
You'd think with all the time I'd spent in restaurants and truck stops and diners over the years I'd know this one, but I plead ignorance.

I'm looking for the correct term for that laminated wood/butcher block kinda counter surface that's on the front edge of the grill in most restaurants. I know there's gotta be a proper term for it, but I never paid enough attntion to learn what it was called. Now that I have a need to know, a Google search comes up with everything EXCEPT what I'm looking for.

For those of you from Southern Indiana, it's where the cooks at Jocko's in Corydon used to beat the balls of hamburger flat with the spatula before they flopped them on the grill.
 
Not around here. The one I'm specifically referring to was not only made of wood, but it actually had a depression worn into the wood from years of beating those hamburgers with a spatula. I figure it might've been original when Jocko opened the place back in 1949...which would explain the extreme amount of wear after almost 40 years of use.

But it certainly wasn't marble...nor was the one in the restaurant down the street.
 
Not from Indiana, so I cannot say what they've got at that restaurant...

But butcher block refers to a wooden cutting surface. It is made of pieces of wood glued together, but does not have a plastic laminate surface (I wasn't sure if you're referring to 'laminated' as the process of joining the wood, or the generic term for plastic counter top).

'Prep Station' is the common term for that work area where the food is readied by the cook.
 
They do have laminate countertops, usually white, but avaliable in lots of colors. Its a pretty hard and durable surface, but will scratch over time.
 
Most research shows that butcher block is more resistant to bacterial contamination than plastic cutting boards (of course, you have to clean it off).
 
OK, perhaps I wasn't clear.

What I'm referring to is attached to the front of the grill, at abour waist height. In the particular instance I'm referring to, it was originally about 4 inches thick, and made of horizontally-laminated strips of hardwood, not unlike the construction method for a butcher block, or those cutting boards we made for our moms in high-school shop class.

What I'm NOT referring to is a plastic or other acrylic laminate, as was most often used in these old restaurants and diners as counter and table tops.

I hope that makes things a tiny bit clearer.
 
You are right Nancy. A lt of inspector will not pass a plastic cutting board. Knife cuts harbor bacteria. There is something about maple that controls it,
gitrib
 
You may be looking for something that is called different things in different places. A lot of grills/griddles have a bit of a stainless piece out in front to keep folks from leaning right up against the hot cooking surface. Anything of wood or any other material out in front of that might be called a preb table, prep shelf, cutting board . . .

I did some googling and found like you probably did they aren't offered, at least online, as an accessory to any of the grills. As most of the grills and griddles are actually made to rest on a shelf, you might try searching (I'm worn out!)on other commercial kitchen equipment, to see if the shelf/ledge is offered as an option for the kitchen "furniture" they're made to rest on.
 
from the land of several people w/ a beer belly .. try 'belly bars' to protect that large area from the hot surface ... many forms .. wood .. metal ... offers same protection
 
MOst local health codes are outlawing wooden boards on new equipment. Older equipment may be grandfathered in still. In most cases, new equipment will have a poly cutting board.

They have several names, cutting board, prep board, sandwich board, ect.

(I was an estimator for a general contractor for quite a few years. We equipped a few kitchens in hospitals, schools, factories, ect. I'm certainly no expert, but do have some experience with puchasing and spec-ing commercial kitchen equipment)
 
I think this is something different but long time ago an old girl friend asked if I ever was shocked by my hardee as we sat around the table after dinner at her house. I jested no I was told I would go Blind. She explained the term refered to the metal edge around kitchen sinks and counters, her father, a contractor said inproper grounding in kitchens allowed stray corrents to shock folks. Her father was shocked at my answer also!!!
 
Here is a picture of what you are looking for......?

They just call it an optional "cutting board"!
griddle_options.jpg
 
THAT's what I'm talking about!

I guess it's a cutting board...just didn't know if that was correct or not. Thanks!
 
I usually don't get to involved with things like this, but when I read your post and then all the replies I knew what you were talking about, but didn't know what it was called either.

My wife had a small truckstop/restuarant back in the late 80's, early 90's and the grille (griddle) had a board on it like you spoke of. They used it as a staging shelf for the plates, etc. Also cut most of the tomato and onion on it.

Brings back memories, most good, some not.
 
I grew up in a little town that had two competing restaurants, not counting the one cafeteria. One served the little frozen pre-formed burgers, while Jocko's served fresh burger--purchased from a local grocery most often--that the staff made into balls, and stored in a tray in a refrigerated drawer next to the grill. When you ordered a burger at Jocko's, the grill jockey grabbed a ball of meat from the drawer and beat it flat with the spatula on the cutting board in front of the grill, then flopped it in the grill to cook. Burgers were served well-done, on grocery-store buns, with a complement of a couple of dill pickle slices and some onion.

After I moved away, about once a month I brought the kids back to town for "Jocko burgers," just so they wouldn't forget what a REAL hamburger is supposed to taste like. [Go ahead, take a bite of a Big Mac...then tell me what the meat in your burger tastes like. Odds are, you can't. But a "Jocko burger" had a flavor that was distinctive, and deep down, you just KNEW that's what a hamburger was SUPPOSED to taste like.]

Jocko's closed a few years back, and I really miss them.
 
Code referees this to a prep apron when it attach's too anything other than a prep table.

When attached too a prep table then it's considered part of the prep table, not a separate item.

The type of food being cooked/prepared determines what building materials that are allowed.

Example:
Red meat has the most restriction's or type 304 SS only materials.

Chicken or rabbit can have galvanized tables/components.

It's the bacteria that can grow on the surface is what codes are concerned about.

I think(CRS) that bamboo with a food grade oil surface is the only wood allowed in a red meat kitchen.

T_Bone
 
Stop It Buzz !, Ya got My mouthwatering for a midnite snack!..,, by describing Jocks butter Flavor delicous hamburgers ,.moist hot bun , Onions sliced, dill pickles, tomato and lettuce on the side , So you can just fit the sandwiche in Your Mouth ! ... sure beat the heck out of the greasey spoon ,, but On the other hand, if a lonely guy was lookin' for love ............
 
Yeah Jim, Jocko's was where you went for good food. And back then I chose to hang out at the Greasy Spoon and have my heart broken time after time after time. Somethin' about a certain slightly crosseyed waitress and the way she walked across the dining room when Grand Funk's "Some Kind of Wonderful" played on the jukebox...now THAT was magical!
 
Problem with Google was, it was giving me information about every piece of restaurant equipment EXCEPT the piece I was looking for.
 
Used to go to Jocko's after we trained harness horses at the old fairgrounds 1/2 mile track. Had breakfast about 10AM after the horses were all hot walked, and cooled out. Man the Corydon Fair was the highlight of the year.Showing Herefords at the fair are some of my best memories.
 
Buzzman72, that section of the grill probably has a ton of different names depending on where in the country you are but according to McDonalds where I worked several years when I was growing up, that area is called the "bullnose". Why, I have no idea and neither did anybody that trained me or people that trained those people. I think it was also named that in the training videos we had at the time (VHS vidoes in the late 80s and early 90s) so it wasnt just something made up by a local employee and stuck, it had some history to it in order to make it into training vidoes (which would take it back all the way to Hamburger University, but thats a whole nother discussion).

Now, why did McDonalds go to the trouble to name and tell employees about that part of the grill? Because when you order a McMuffin the canadial bacon is "cooked" there. Canadian bacon is precoked so it just needs to be warmed up and that part of the grill is not directally heated but it does get hot, about 150-160 IIRC. McDonalds did not want the canadian bacon on the hotter flat part of the grill because it would burn it too easily, they just wanted it warmed.

The grills flats were cast iron, the bullnose was stainless (as was the rest of the grill) and there was a "belly bar" like mentioned above. The bellybar had a lip above it so when you brought a tray over from the prep table, it sat on the belly bar and hooked into the lip so nobody had to hold it.

Im slight ashamed that I remember this stuff from way back then...
 
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