Are you the owner or manager of a restaurant, hotel, cruise line, or another type of business that serves food and employs chefs? If so, you should make sure you hire the best possible chefs to work for your company.
There are about 150,000 chefs in the U.S. today. Your goal should be to locate the right chefs in your specific area to guarantee your customers get their money’s worth when they order food from your establishment.
You should also set your chefs up with everything they’ll need to prepare delicious meals. From cooking utensils to chef coats and other professional chef clothes, they’ll be able to use these kinds of things to make the most of their cooking talents.
There are so many different types of chef coats you can invest in to create the perfect chef uniforms for your chefs. It can make buying these types of chef clothing confusing to some degree.
Here are some of the things you should look for in chef coats to make shopping for them easier on yourself.
Brands
The global chef uniform market is worth billions of dollars at this point. Because of this, there is definitely not a shortage of brands that can provide your company with chef coats and other chef wear.
You’re free to shop around for the various chef coats available through different companies. But you’re likely going to find that Chef Works will be one of the very best options of the bunch. It’s why they sell more chef uniforms each year than any other company operating in this space.
It would be well worth checking out the different chef coat options that Chef Works carries. You should be able to locate chef coats for your company’s chefs that’ll check all the right boxes.
Types
As you shop for chef coats through a company like Chef Works, you’re going to notice something almost right away. There will be a whole lot of different types of chef coats that you can invest in for your company.
There are, for example, short-sleeve and long-sleeve chef coats. There are also basic chef coats as well as executive chef coats. You’ll even find both chef coats with buttons on the front of them versus chef coats with zippers.
For this reason, you aren’t going to want to just choose the first types of chef clothing you can find for your chefs. You might want to get some input from the chefs who are currently on your staff as far as which types of chef coats would work best for them. They can share some invaluable insight with you that’ll steer you in the right direction as you sift through the different types of chef coats that’ll be available through a brand like Chef Works.
Materials
Outside of the fact that chef coats come in a wide range of different types, there are also many different materials that can be used to manufacture these coats. These materials will be yet another thing you’ll need to consider when you’re trying to pick out the right coats for your chefs.
Some chef coats will be made out of cotton. Others will be made out of polyester. If you know that the kitchen at your restaurant gets extremely hot, you might like what polyester will have to offer in terms of being lightweight and breathable.
This might be another instance in which you’ll want to check in with your current chefs to see which materials they enjoy cooking in the most. These materials will play a big part in how comfortable your chefs are while they’re working in your company’s kitchen.
Sizes
Once upon a time, it wasn’t uncommon at all for most chefs to throw on oversized chef coats when they were at work. Some of them did this, at least in part, because their employers bought a bunch of bigger sizes and told them to just throw on whichever coats fit best. It sometimes resulted in them wearing ill-fitting chef coats that didn’t look very nice.
Whenever possible, you should do your best to provide your chefs with coats that’ll come in all different sizes. There is a chance that your customers might come face-to-face with your chefs at certain times, and you’ll want the appearances of your chefs to reflect well on your business.
Ideally, each of your chef coats should look like they were custom-made to fit your chefs. You don’t want them to be too tight or too baggy since it might affect how professional they look.
Chef coats that are too tight or too loose can also take a toll on chefs in the kitchen. They might not be able to move around as freely as they would like to because of the sizes of their coats.
Colors
When you picture a chef’s coat in your mind, what color is it? You most likely just responded by saying the color “white.”
And for good reason! Chefs have traditionally worn white coats to make it easy to get the stains out of them. But nowadays, you’ll find that not all chefs are wearing white anymore.
In fact, most chefs who have been working for at least a few years now will have branched out to other chef coat colors like black, gray, navy, and more. By purchasing chef coats in colors other than white, you might be able to help your chefs stand out.
Darker colors will also obviously hide stains on chef coats much better than lighter colors will. That might be reason enough for you to run out and buy coats that will be on the darker side.
Maintenance
Far too often, companies buying chef coats will spend so much time worrying about how these coats look that they’ll completely overlook the maintenance that’ll need to be done to them. Make it your mission to avoid making this mistake.
You’re going to need to arrange to have your company’s chef coats washed after every single shift your chefs work. So you’ll want to search for coats that will be very durable and easy to maintain once you welcome them into your company’s kitchen.
Most chef coats will come with a set of very specific maintenance steps that will need to be taken. You should see to it that you’re going to be up for the challenge of maintaining and cleaning the coats that your chefs wear accordingly.
Prices
In an attempt to save money, your company might be tempted to invest in chef coats that are on the cheaper side. It’ll give you more money to spend in other areas of your business like buying commercial furniture.
But guess what? If you cut corners like this, it might not be long before you’re running back out to buy more chef coats. Cheaper coats won’t always be able to stand up to everything that your chefs will throw at them.
This doesn’t mean you have to plan to spend a small fortune on coats or any other types of chef clothing for that matter. You should be able to find chef wear through a company like Chef Works that’ll fit into your company’s budget.
But you also shouldn’t skimp on something as important as chef coats and the other aspects of chef uniforms if you can avoid doing it. You’ll pay the price for it if you take this approach to purchasing professional chef clothes.
Customizations
Do you want to make your chefs feel extra special from the second they put your company’s new chef coats on? Then you might want to splurge a little bit and add customizations to the coats you buy for them.
What kinds of customizations are we talking about? Well, you should be able to add things like the name of your restaurant, hotel, cruise line, etc. to your chef coats. You should also be able to put the names of your chefs on their coats.
You should even be able to add decorative features to the coats your chefs will wear to make them unique to your company. These customizations might increase the cost of these coats a little bit, but they’ll be well worth the extra expense.
If you can afford to customize your chef coats, you’ll be able to get a much better reaction out of your chefs. It’ll also bode well for your business as a whole when you work to make your chefs and all your other employees look their absolute best.
Invest in the Best Chef Coats for Your Establishment’s Chefs
As you can see, there will be so many things you’ll need to keep in the back of your mind when you’re buying chef coats for your company’s chefs. You should consider each and every one of them and use them to work your way through the process of shopping for these coats.
The Hode Group, Inc. can help you get your hands on the best chef coats for your company. We work with brands like Chef Works that can provide you with top-of-the-line chef wear.
Get in touch with us today to begin your search for the right chef coats.
