For Buildings · Restaurants & Food Service
Commercial Kitchen Plumbing: Gas, Water & Grease Done Right
A commercial kitchen is three plumbing systems in one room: the gas that fires the cooking line, the water that feeds prep and wash-down, and the grease infrastructure that keeps DEP off your back. Opening a kitchen means all three built to pass DOB, DEP, and Health Department review the first time.
We build and service kitchens for restaurants, ghost kitchens, and food-service tenants across NYC, on opening-day schedules, with the permits filed by the Licensed Master Plumber doing the work.
Openings and Build-Outs
The cooking line is a gas project first: load calculations for the range, fryers, ovens, and broilers; piping sized and routed for the real equipment schedule; DOB permits and pressure tests; and coordination with the utility when the building's gas service needs upsizing. In NYC, all of it legally runs through a Licensed Master Plumber — the gas license behind every kitchen we build →
Around the gas: water service sized for peak demand, hand and prep sinks per code, hot water that keeps up with the dish machine, indirect waste, and floor drainage that anticipates wash-down instead of fighting it. We coordinate directly with your GC, designer, and expediter, and deliver sign-offs on the schedule the opening date demands.
Grease Systems
DEP requires grease interceptors on food-service establishments, sized to the actual equipment load and installed by a Licensed Master Plumber — and undersized or neglected grease systems are among the most common ways kitchens meet DEP enforcement. We size, install, and service interceptors as part of the kitchen scope. The full compliance picture — DEP rules, sizing standards, violations and how they resolve — lives on our grease trap compliance page →
Keeping Kitchens Open
After opening day, the relationship changes tense: a cooking line that won't fire on a Friday night, a floor drain backing up mid-service, a gas smell that clears the dining room. Food-service emergencies get priority dispatch — call (718) 835-3555 directly — and operators on planned maintenance get the response commitments in writing. The cheapest emergency remains the one that maintenance prevented.
The Operator's Compliance Stack
A commercial kitchen carries a standing regulatory calendar: periodic gas piping inspections under Local Law 152 →, annual backflow prevention testing where devices protect the water supply (RPZ testing →), and the grease obligations above. One shop performing the work and the filings means the calendar actually gets kept — and violations stay a story about other kitchens.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
How early should plumbing get involved in a restaurant build-out?
At the lease and layout stage, before the kitchen design is frozen. The expensive surprises — a gas service too small for the cooking line, no gravity path for a grease interceptor, undersized water service — are all discoverable from a site walkthrough before you sign. We do pre-lease walkthroughs for exactly this reason; an hour on site beats a five-figure change order.
Can you work with our GC and expediter?
Yes — that’s the normal shape of a build-out. The GC owns the schedule, the expediter owns the filing calendar, and we own the licensed gas and plumbing scope inside it: drawings coordination, DOB permits under our license, inspections, and sign-offs delivered when the schedule needs them.
What does the Health Department care about from plumbing?
Hand sinks where code requires them, hot water at the right temperatures and volumes, indirect waste on food equipment, backflow protection, and grease handling that works. Kitchens fail pre-opening inspections on plumbing details more than owners expect — we build to the inspection checklist, not just the drawings.
Our kitchen is open — do you handle service and emergencies?
Yes. A dead cooking line or a backed-up grease line is lost revenue by the hour, and food-service calls get priority dispatch. We also run planned maintenance for operators — grease system service, backflow testing, and the gas piping inspections commercial kitchens are subject to — so the emergencies get rarer.
Who handles the grease trap requirements?
We do, end to end — sizing to DEP’s standards, installation under permit, and the compliance documentation. The full regulatory picture (DEP rules, sizing, violations) lives on our grease trap compliance page, and the install and service work runs through this practice.
Explore related paths
Opening a Kitchen? Keeping One Open?
Tell us the project — build-out, equipment change, grease system, or a kitchen that keeps flooding — and we’ll scope the licensed plumbing side with dates you can build a schedule on.