Want To Cook Like A Pro? Shop Where the Pros Shop.
A lot of people started doing a lot of cooking and baking in the last year or so. And most of them made huge mistakes by going to their local big box and/or discount stores to buy the equipment needed for all that culinary activity. After all, where else are you going to go to buy pots and pans and such, right? Not right. Let me tell you where to go. (Hey, people tell me where to go all the time) Go to your local restaurant supply store.
You want to cook like a pro? Shop where the pros shop. Even if you don't want to cook like a pro, even if you just want to throw together a decent meal for your family or bake some cookies or a loaf of bread or something, you should still shop where the pros shop. There are lots of reasons why. The three that come immediately to mind are quality, selection, and price.
Let's look first at quality. Do you know how many times a day the average skillet or saucepan gets tossed around in a restaurant kitchen? I promise you there is not a single piece of cookware you can buy at Walmart or Target that could stand up to that kind of use. Okay, maybe one: a Lodge cast-iron frying pan. Those things are practically indestructible. But when it comes to everyday pots and pans, you will never beat the quality you'll find at a place that serves the food service industry.
Commercial grade cookware and bakeware is tough because it has to be. You really need to spend ten minutes in a restaurant kitchen and you'll see why. I used to have a cook in one of my restaurants who was notorious for beating up cookware. With the pace and pressure in a professional kitchen, nobody expects you to handle your cooking tools like they were made of some rare fragile element. But this guy was so far beyond normal wear and tear that I once threatened to take the cost of the next pan he damaged out of his paycheck. I can't even imagine what would happen to a set of the stuff most people buy for home use. Actually, I would have to imagine it because most health department regulations do not permit non-commercial grade cookware in commercial kitchens. So if the cookware and utensils I buy at a restaurant supply will hold up to the.....shall we say “less than careful”.....handling it gets in a professional kitchen, imagine how long it will last in yours.
Now, are all these pans going to match? Are they all going to be shiny and colorful? Will they have a celebrity chef's name on them? Hell, no. The stuff you're going to bring home from a restaurant supply store is going to be functional and probably a little ugly. But what do you want? Pretty pans with famous names on them that you'll throw out next year when they get warped and scratched and beaten to a pulp or sturdy pans that you'll keep for years and years to come?
Selection is another thing. Go to Wallyworld and I'll tell you what you're going to find: fifty different sets of the same four or five pans. There'll be cheap stainless steel ones and colorful aluminum ones and some painted with copper paint because it's the latest fad, but they're all going to be the same combination of a 7” or 8” sauté pan, a 9” or 10” sauté pan, a 1 quart saucepan, a 2 quart saucepan, and a 4 quart Dutch oven. Throw in lids for all but the smaller sauté pan and you've got yourself a “nine piece set.” Just choose the color or the brand name. Some of them will include a bunch of flimsy spoons and utensils so they can advertise a “twenty piece set” and make you feel like you're getting a real deal. Eh, not so much.
Now, at a restaurant supply store, you're going to find a lot of things you would never in a million years need or use unless you have a very large family. I mean, most people are not going to make soup in a 32 quart stock pot. And the average baker is not going to have much use for a 40” piano whisk. That said, such places are also loaded up with “normal” stuff that the everyday home cook will use: pots, pans, sheet trays, racks, mixing bowls, cutting boards, cutlery, utensils, storage containers, etc. You'll find everything you need to make killer pizza at home. There are baking pans and bread making tools and cake decorating supplies. Aprons and oven mitts and pot holders. And it won't be like going to Target or Bed, Bath and Beyond or Costco where you'll find a whisk or two hanging on a peg. No, you're local restaurant supply will have an entire frickin' wall dedicated to nothing but whisks of every size, shape, and configuration.
You can even find some small appliances there that will easily out perform and out last anything you'll buy in the big box stores. Things like immersion blenders, for instance. But don't try to go in for the big stuff – stoves and refrigeration units and such – because they're meant for commercial use and aren't generally compatible with residential wiring. But for everything else, your restaurant supply store is your one-stop shop. Just be sure to tie a pillow to your chin before you walk through the door for the first time because your jaw will drop when you see the variety of things available at prices you can afford.
Which brings us to the last point; you won't beat the prices and/or value you'll find at a restaurant supply store. I can lay hands on an 8” aluminum frying pan at my local store for eight bucks. Non-stick is thirteen. Okay, I see an 8” non-stick pan advertised at Walmart for six dollars. But you know what the difference is? The one I buy at the restaurant supply store will still be round after I drop it a couple of times and I'll still be cooking in it next year and the year after while you've been back to Walmart twice to replace yours.
On the other side of the spectrum, you can drop by someplace like Williams Sonoma and pick up a nice 8” All-Clad Non-Stick Fry Pan. Just make sure to stop at the bank first 'cause it's gonna cost you $140. When it comes to consumer vs commercial quality, All-Clad, like Lodge, is one of the rare exceptions. Most All-Clad products are tough enough that they can hold up in a professional kitchen. But unless you're some big name TV chef, you're not going to spend two or three-hundred dollars on a single pan. Not when you can buy pans that are equally functional, if somewhat less pretty, for twenty or thirty bucks.
Not everything is cheaper at a restaurant supply store. But, by and large, things will be less expensive simply because you, the retail consumer, are not their primary customer. They are not retailers. They are there to act as wholesalers to businesses buying in bulk. That you can walk in off the street and snag a bargain on one or two individual items is just icing on the cake.
Most restaurant supply stores are open to the public. Some are not. Restaurant Depot, for example, requires you to be a member of the food service industry in order to shop their stores. US Foods CHEF'STORE does not. A lot of communities have locally owned and operated supply stores, which are almost always open to the public. Since it might be something of a safari to go to one of these merchandise meccas, you might want to check the store's shopping policy before you head out.
If all else fails and your local store turns out to be “members only,” don't despair. There's always the Internet. WebstaurantStore.com is a cook's paradise, featuring over 342,000 items in their catalog and shipping to ninety-six percent of the US within two days. Ka Tom Restaurant Supply is another good online source. I have furnished restaurant kitchens from both. Downside: shipping costs. Yeah, Webstaurant has a “plus” program that nets you free ground shipping and priority ordering, but it's a hundred bucks a month, so, no. Check them out at www.webstaurantstore.com and www.katom.com.
I'm not saying I buy every single thing in my home kitchen at restaurant supply stores. The aforementioned Lodge cast-iron cookware is just as good from Walmart as it is from my local supply store and it's priced about the same. And let's be real; a wooden spoon is a wooden spoon no matter where you buy it. But if you've got a restaurant supply store fairly close by, you really ought to invest the time in checking it out. If you know somebody in the food service industry, you might want to take them along as sort of a “native guide” the first time you go. I promise you'll be overwhelmed and maybe a little intimidated. And you'll likely say “what the hell is that for?” quite a bit. But once you get the lay of the land, you'll never go back to the big box stores for your cooking and baking tools. And a lot of restaurant supply stores carry bulk foods as well, so you can often score big savings there, too.
Bottom line: when it comes to quality, selection, and price, you don't have to be a pro to shop like one.
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