Restaurants
Savor the profits from energy efficiency! Your restaurant’s profit is typically only 3–9 percent of total revenue. Follow these ENERGY STAR cost-effective recommendations and your investment in energy efficiency can give you up to a 30-percent return.
Plus, you may also receive other delightful surprises such as increased customer comfort, better lighting, more repeat business, and increased employee productivity.
Get help with saving energy … and help your bottom line
Restaurants use about five to seven times more energy per square foot than other commercial buildings. High-volume quick-service restaurants (QSRs) may even use up to 10 times more energy per square foot than other commercial buildings. As energy costs increase, investing in energy efficiency is the best way to protect your business against these rising prices.
- Reduce your restaurant’s energy consumption by following the cost-saving tips outlined in ENERGY STAR Guide for Restaurants: Putting Energy into Profits.
- Learn about quick tips, energy-efficient equipment, and resources for saving energy in restaurants in the two-page Energy Use and Energy Efficiency Opportunities in Restaurants Fact Sheet.
- Purchase the ENERGY STAR commercial kitchen package, for new kitchen construction or as a replacement for aging equipment, to save significant amounts of money and energy on your electric, gas, water, and sewer bills.
- Look for the ENERGY STAR and find savings in your commercial kitchen with this two-page fact sheet that outlines the types of ENERGY STAR certified commercial food service equipment and five easy steps to start saving energy.
Tips for saving energy
Get started today with these tips for improving the efficiency of your restaurant.
Quick fixes
| If you: | You can: |
| Light your dining area with dimmable incandescent light bulbs | Replace them with dimmable compact fluorescent light bulbs |
| Light any area, including under your exhaust hood, with non-dimming incandescent light bulbs | Replace them with compact fluorescent light bulbs |
| Set your heating and cooling thermostat(s) by hand | Install a programmable thermostat and use night setback |
| Only partially fill your refrigerators and freezers | Keep your newer refrigerators and freezers filled; empty and disconnect older ones |
| Clean your refrigerator and freezer condenser coils infrequently | Clean them every three months |
| Have cracked or warped refrigerator or freezer gaskets or hinges | Replace or repair them |
| Operate any appliance when it is not needed | Turn it off |
Lighting
| If you: | You can: |
| Light your dining area or kitchen with standard fluorescent lighting and magnetic ballasts | Replace them with T-8 fluorescent lamps with electronic ballasts |
| Provide too much light in your dining area during daytime hours | Install a daylighting control system |
| Light your exit signs with incandescent bulbs | Replace the bulbs with light emitting diode (LED) exit sign retrofit kits |
| Light your parking area with incandescent or mercury vapor lighting | Replace it with high-pressure sodium or metal halide lighting (add photocells and a timer for additional savings) |
| Manually turn the lights in refrigerators, freezers, and storage areas on and off | Replace the switches with occupancy sensors (low-temperature sensors in refrigerators) |
| Spotlight areas with incandescent light bulbs | Replace them with halogen bulbs |
Kitchen enhancements
| If you: | You can: |
| Fry food with a conventional gas fryer | Replace it with an infrared gas fryer or a high-efficiency atmospheric gas fryer |
| Have a 10- to 20-year-old conventional dishwasher | Replace it with an insulated dishwasher, or replace it with an infrared gas dishwasher |
| Have a walk-in refrigerator | Install evaporator fan controls to reduce fan use |
| Leave your walk-in refrigerator door open when loading it | Install a plastic strip curtain over the entrance |
| Have a refrigerator that needs replacing | Replace it with a high-efficiency refrigerator |
Large investments
| If you: | You can: |
| Have an oil or gas boiler or furnace that is ready for replacement | Replace it with a high-efficiency oil or gas boiler or furnace |
| Heat your dining area with electric resistance baseboard heaters | Replace resistance heating and old cooling system with a heat pump (if you are in a temperate climate zone) |
| Cool your dining area and kitchen with an old, standard-efficiency air-conditioning system | Replace it with a high-efficiency electric or gas air-conditioning system |
| Use evaporative coolers | Check monthly to ensure the evaporator element and drain are not clogged |
| Spotlight areas with incandescent light bulbs | Replace them with halogen bulbs |
| Exhaust cooking fumes with a standard exhaust hood that needs to be replaced | Replace it with hoods optimized for your cooking needs |
| Need to replace your heating and cooling systems | Replace them with a geothermal heat pump (ask your local utility about rebates) |
| Need to replace your dining area heating and cooling systems | Include desiccant energy recovery in the replacement system |
| Need to replace your kitchen cooling system | Include evaporative cooling in the design |
| Manually control your lighting, heating, and cooling | Install an energy management system |
| Use personal computers in your restaurant | Specify ENERGY STAR certified computers |
| Have large un-tinted glass wall space | Install clear coating on the south and west windows |
Did you know?
The money you save on operating costs adds to what you get to keep, so saving 20 percent on energy operating costs can increase your profit as much as one-third.