The Buoy and Oyster, Margate
A cramped galley kitchen opened up into an open theatre kitchen and bar on Margate seafront, delivered entirely in-house in five weeks.Turn a galley kitchen into part of the room
The Buoy and Oyster sits on Margate seafront. The kitchen it had was a cramped galley: closed off, narrow, and sized by the walls around it rather than by the way the restaurant wanted to work.
The brief was to open it up into an open theatre kitchen and bar, so that cooking happens in front of the dining room instead of behind it. That is a change of category, not a refurbishment. A theatre kitchen has to work as a commercial kitchen and read as part of the room at the same time.
Two problems at once, and nowhere to hide either of them
The first problem was the space itself. A galley kitchen is cramped because of what surrounds it, so opening it up is building work rather than a new equipment layout. Until the room changes shape, no arrangement of kit inside it gives you a theatre kitchen, and the moment the room does change shape every service in it moves as well: extraction, power, water, drainage and refrigeration all have to be re-planned rather than re-connected.
The second problem is that a theatre kitchen is on display, and everything a closed kitchen is allowed to hide, an open one is not. Extraction has to be good enough that the dining room does not carry the smell of the cook line, which is a harder duty than the same kitchen behind a wall. Noise matters, because the kitchen is now inside the room people are eating in. Every stainless edge, joint and weld is in view, so the fabrication has to be finished to a front-of-house standard rather than a back-of-house one. And the layout has to keep prep and wash-up out of the sightline while still leaving the chefs a workable route between them.
All of that had to be resolved in five weeks, on a seafront site, in one continuous programme. Neither problem can be deferred: the building work sets the services, the services set the equipment, and the finish standard applies to all of it.
Delivered entirely in-house, in one programme
The whole job was delivered entirely in-house: design, stainless fabrication, extraction, hygienic finishes, electrical, plumbing and equipment installation, all by our own team with no subcontract chain. On a five-week programme where opening the room up dictates when the services can be set, that is the difference between a sequence you control and a sequence you wait on. One team on site meant the builder's work, the ductwork and the fabrication could be brought forward or held back against each other day by day, instead of being booked in blocks by different companies.
Five weeks, and the kitchen is now the view
Delivered in five weeks, in the £100k+ band, entirely by our own team. What was a cramped galley is an open theatre kitchen and bar, with the cooking in front of the dining room and the finish standard to match.
Our restaurant kitchen design page covers how we approach open and theatre kitchens, and our Thanet page lists other projects in Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs.