In the high-stakes world of commercial foodservice, it’s incredibly easy to get swept up in the glamour of front-of-house aesthetics or the high-tech flash of smart combi ovens and custom knives. But if you sit down with any seasoned operator, they will tell you the exact same thing: true kitchen efficiency is won or lost entirely behind the scenes.
To continue our featured digital series, “The Equipment I Can’t Live Without,” our Director of Marketing & E-Commerce, Megan Keiswetter, sat down for a Q&A with Chef Danny Cerqueda, CEC, the Director of Culinary for The Hansen Group (THG).
With more than 25 years of culinary experience spanning prestigious private clubs—including a decade at the renowned Cherokee Town & Country Club—and more than 30 culinary competitions under his belt (including Bocuse d’Or USA), Chef Danny understands back-of-house operations with mathematical precision. Today, as a culinary leader and the President of the Atlanta Chefs Association, he channels that deep expertise into helping operators optimize smaller kitchen footprints, streamline demanding workflows, and select heavy-duty equipment built to survive the brutal realities of modern foodservice.
Here is a look into Chef Danny’s transition from watching cooking shows after school to leading major culinary councils, his stripped-down operational essentials, and why the ultimate kitchen workhorse doesn’t even plug in.
From “Great Chefs” to the Capital of Kitchen Strategy
Most culinary passion stories start with a family recipe, but Chef Danny’s path was sparked by a mix of early grit and television inspiration.
“My first job, at 16, was a short-order cook on the weekends when I was in high school,” Danny shares. “It was a new restaurant, and I was the only cook that they hired that had zero experience. By my 17th birthday, I was a manager with a key to the store. During this time in my life, there was a TV show on the Discovery Channel called Great Chefs of the World, which I religiously watched every day after school. This was right before the Food Network boom, and I loved it because it opened my eyes to what a real chef could be.”
Decades later, that eye for executive-level kitchen management has shaped how he views layout design, labor optimization, and equipment durability.
The Stripped-Down Essential Five: The Core BOH Hardware
When hit with the foundational question of our series—“If a crisis forced you to strip your entire back-of-house down to a bare-bones setup just to keep the doors open, what operational hardware survives?”—Chef Danny built a list centered on absolute multi-functionality and throughput:
- Combi Oven: The undisputed king of versatility. You can literally do just about everything with a good combi oven: steam, roast, braise, stew, poach, blanch, sear, proof, hot hold, overnight cooking, bake, and program recipes.
- Stove with a Lowboy Oven: A reliable, high-BTU stove top is essential to sauté at the last minute or reduce sauces all day long.
- Reliable Refrigeration: Dependable cold storage is the critical, non-negotiable line of defense to keep inventory pristine and prevent food spoilage.
- High-Temperature Broiler or Char Grill: Some flavor profiles simply cannot be replicated in an oven. You need a high-temperature broiler or char grill to get authentic sear marks and char on steaks.
- Mechanical Dishwasher: Because at the end of a grueling, high-volume shift, no real-world crew has the time or energy to tackle an entire pit of pots and pans by hand!
The Ultimate Unsung Hero: The Work Table
While high-end cooking appliances tend to get all the glory, Chef Danny emphasizes that a kitchen’s true day-to-day functionality and back-of-the-house operations rely on an asset that many operators completely take for granted.
“The most underrated piece in the BOH is the work table,” Danny notes. “This doesn’t plug in, it does no cooking, but it is definitely the hidden workhorse. Too often we take it for granted until you have worked on a table that is too low, too wobbly, uneven, wiggles, or tries to roll every time you lean on it. A solid work table that stays put and can hold up to abuse is the unsung hero of the kitchen.”
💡 Chef Danny’s Pro Tip on Cleanability: “Too often we move forward with equipment, china, or glass and don’t think about the cleanability or stackability of it. Durable equipment that is easy to clean is always a gift. Equipment that is hard to clean, has sharp corners that can injure, or is not easy to repair only gives you headaches down the road. I’ve made mistakes in the past where I ordered china that wasn’t dishwasher safe, or glassware with a concave bottom that just collected dirty dishwater when it came out of the machine! We all like plateware and cooking equipment that is bright, shiny, and looks sexy—but over time, if it’s not easy to clean or easily stored away, it only turns into a hassle.”
Defeating the “One-Trick Pony” in Shrinking Footprints
With modern real estate costs climbing, commercial kitchen footprints are shrinking rapidly. To survive, modern spaces require multi-functional gear. “Every chef that I have met who works in real kitchens will rarely ever buy a singular functioning piece of equipment due to space restrictions,” Danny explains, noting that while layouts are getting smaller, the industry is forcing a shift toward smarter, easier-to-clean machinery.
This exact need for versatile, dual-purpose gear is why he points to a classic piece of manual kitchen infrastructure as pure gold: The Enclosed Transport Cabinet.
“I love basic Enclosed Cabinets because they are a great way to keep things organized,” Danny says. He also lets a classic industry secret slip: “Chefs everywhere will admit this—we turn these into a makeshift hotbox by adding a sheet pan and a few Sternos to the bottom!”
You might wonder why chefs would opt for this old-school hack over a fancier, more complex electric holding cabinet.
“It started as pure kitchen ingenuity,” he laughs, sarcastically boasting. “The cost difference is huge. If I can have a cart like that used as a storage container 90% of the time and a hot box 10% of the time, I don’t have to worry about more electrical things to maintain, replace, or fix later. The fancier things get and the more bells and whistles it has, the less they seem to last. Sometimes the old-school, more manual things like a transport cart are pure gold.”
That same appreciation for rugged utility drives his second New Age favorite: The Mobile Floor Mat Cart.
In a fast-paced environment, floor mats are essential to alleviate foot pain and prevent dangerous slips, but managing them is a notorious back-of-house chore. “The New Age Mat Carts are great for our stewards to easily collect, transport, and spray down the mats at the end of each day without dragging them across clean floors,” he notes.
Mapping Mobile Equipment: Mise en Place for Carts
When a kitchen hits peak volume, those same mobile units can either be the ultimate workflow solution or a massive bottleneck. According to Danny, maximizing throughput relies on expanding the traditional definition of prep to include your rolling hardware.
“Mise en place isn’t just for smallwares and ingredients; it’s for the physical layout of the kitchen,” Danny explains. He champions the rule of explicitly designating where carts live both when they are in active use and when they are idle. “They need to have a strict home that is completely out of the way—like against a dead wall or a designated corridor.”
To make it work, it requires absolute discipline from the crew. For example, Danny’s rubber floor mat cart lived completely outside on the loading dock during service hours. The dishwashers rolled it in to lay the mats down first thing in the morning, and immediately pushed the empty cart back outside. At the end of the shift, they retrieved it, stacked the dirty mats, and headed straight to the wash dock. “The cart never lives where it isn’t actively needed,” Danny says. “Just like a speed cart holding bread is strictly placed right on the line where it’s needed, every single mobile unit must be mapped directly into the workflow.”
Industry Reality vs. Social Media Glamour
This hyper-focus on daily execution is a far cry from what the public sees on television. Thanks to the explosion of modern food media and social media influencers, the public perception of a chef’s daily life has shifted dramatically—something Danny views with a healthy dose of reality. In fact, based on ballpark polls with fellow culinary instructors, he notes a startling cultural shift: while culinary programs are full, only about 25% of enrolled vocational students actually plan to become working chefs. The rest are there to be influencers, food stylists, or digital restaurateurs.
“Everyone’s perception of kitchen life right now is glamorous, full of nothing but pure creativity where everything always goes according to plan,” Danny smiles. “The reality is that a chef’s greatest skill is problem-solving and improvising when things completely fall apart.”
What the camera clips leave out are the grueling hours spent on repetitive, gritty prep work like peeling onions, processing potatoes, or dicing vegetables. “Creating a single gorgeous dish on TV or for an Instagram reel is one thing,” says Danny. “Prepping that dish and flawlessly recreating it 50 more times in a single night—while simultaneously managing multiple other menu items under a ticking clock—is the real challenge.”
That relentless focus on real-world execution is why he hopes to see one specific modern trend quietly disappear: Social Media Plated Food.
“I mean plates of food that have so many intricate steps, dots of sauce, and delicate components to prepare that it just isn’t feasible to execute in a live environment,” Danny explains. “It gives me anxiety thinking about executing those multiple times in an evening. By the time you’re finished meticulously plating it with tweezers, everything is completely cold!” (He definitely has us nodding our heads and laughing at that visual!)
Kitchen Debates, Fast Food Guilty Pleasures, and Food Hills to Die On
To get to know the true tastes behind the Corporate Chef jacket, we put Chef Danny through our rapid-fire lightning round:
- The Ultimate Guilty Pleasure Fast Food: “A classic cheeseburger made with American cheese, mustard, and pickles. If it’s a smashburger, American cheese is mandatory. If it’s a thick tavern burger, we can talk about other kinds of cheese.” (And honestly, who doesn’t love a good burger?)
- The Absolute Burger Dealbreaker: “Ketchup has exactly two purposes: it belongs on French fries, and it’s an ingredient inside a barbecue sauce. It does NOT belong on my burger under any circumstance. Nope.” (We have a feeling this might cause some serious debate!)
- Does Pineapple Belong on Pizza?: “Absolutely NOT! Can it technically work? Sure, it can work on a pizza, but not on a traditional red sauce with mozzarella. Now, if we do a sweet chili base sauce, ditch the pepperoni for bell peppers and red onions, and do fried chicken with roasted pineapple? Then we can talk.” (The great debate continues... some of us might beg to differ, Chef!)
- The Food Hill He is Willing to Die On: “For a super long time, the unwritten culinary rule was that seafood and cheese do NOT go together. But I think you can absolutely get away with it now if you’re highly intentional. If you pick the right cheese and pair it with the exact right seafood, it works.” (If he keeps bringing up cheese, we are definitely going to need a snack break before this interview is over.)
- The One Ingredient He Despises: “Mint jelly. I absolutely despise it,” he jokes. “On the flip side, one of my favorite things in the world is bacon. Everything goes with bacon, and I can make anything work with it—bacon ice cream, bacon granola, bacon-wrapped strawberries, bacon chocolate chip cookies—challenge me! But the one single ingredient on this earth that can never, ever go with bacon is mint jelly.” (Let it be known that we, New Age Industrial, will not be held responsible for any major, post-interview decline in mint jelly sales. Naturally, we have also volunteered to officially sample any and all of the bacon-loaded foods he mentioned!)
Designing from the Inside Out: Advice for the Next Generation
For young culinary entrepreneurs building out their very first independent commercial kitchens, Chef Danny’s advice is simple: look past the initial price tag and focus on structural integrity.
💡 Chef Danny’s Pro Tip on Why You Shouldn’t Purchase “Cheap” Equipment: “Cutting corners on your operational infrastructure will always come back to haunt you at the worst possible time,” Danny warns. “Sometimes it’s completely fine to save a little on certain raw ingredients, but more often than not, you will deeply regret buying cheap, flimsy gear. The words I live by are simple: The more you take care of your equipment, the more your equipment will take care of you.”
When asked what comes to mind when he hears the name New Age Industrial, Danny doesn’t hesitate: “Solid, sturdy, dependable, the industry standard, and completely customizable. One of their absolute best ideals as a manufacturer is that you can come to them with a loose custom design, and their engineering team will literally make it happen.”
About Our Partner: The Hansen Group (THG)
At New Age Industrial, we know that manufacturing heavy-duty aluminum equipment is only half the battle—commercial operators also need elite culinary consulting, portfolio strategy, and operational design to bring a space to life. That is why we are incredibly proud to partner with The Hansen Group (THG), one of the premier foodservice manufacturers’ representative agencies in the country.
For decades, THG has set the gold standard across the Southeast for operational consulting, matching top-tier equipment brands with independent restaurants, major chains, and non-commercial facilities to optimize their workflow and menu execution.
Experience Innovation: THG’s State-of-the-Art Culinary Centers & Test Kitchens
THG doesn’t just ask chefs and owners to look at paper spec sheets; they invite them to test-drive equipment in real-time. At their elite, fully live Test Kitchens and Culinary Centers, operators can experiment with menu development, test product throughput, evaluate back-of-house ergonomics, and view heavy-duty material handling layouts in person before making a single capital expenditure.
Whether you need to map out how mobile nesting racks can save space in a shrinking footprint, evaluate standard product durability, or see equipment innovation in action, THG’s interactive centers bridge the gap between manufacturer engineering and real-world culinary execution.
Connect and Follow Our Teams
Stay up to date with the latest culinary trends, BOH operational strategies, and live footage from the test kitchens by connecting with our teams on social media.
Follow New Age Industrial
- Facebook: @NewAgeIndustrial
- LinkedIn: @New Age Industrial Corp Inc
- Instagram: @newageindustrial
Connect with The Hansen Group (THG) To learn more about optimizing your commercial kitchen layout, expanding your equipment portfolio, or scheduling an interactive session at a premier THG Culinary Center, visit the official Website for The Hansen Group.
Follow The Hansen Group
- Facebook: @thehansengroup
- LinkedIn: @The Hansen Group
- Instagram: @thehansengroupus
