Dishwashing and cleaning equipment is the throughput bottleneck in every commercial kitchen and bar. Get the wash specification wrong and the dish pile drives service speed; get it right and you free up labour, glassware and pots for the next cover. Hospitality Connect supplies undercounter, passthrough and rack conveyor dishwashers, glasswashers, pre-rinse units, dish racks and accompanying chemicals from 3Monkeez, Winterhalter, Apuro and Eswood, configured for AU 240V single-phase or three-phase 415V supply.
Types of dishwashing equipment
- Undercounter glasswashers and dishwashers: 400–500mm rack machines that fit under most bar and cafe benches. Cycles run 90–180 seconds.
- Passthrough hood dishwashers: Higher throughput; the operator slides racks through entry and exit benches. Cycles 60–120 seconds.
- Rack conveyor and flight machines: For venues over 300 covers — rack volumes of 100+ per hour with continuous loading.
- Pot and utensil washers: Larger chambers with extended wash arms for bain marie inserts, GN pans and stockpots.
- Pre-rinse units and spray arms: Dual-hob and single-hob pre-rinse taps with pot fillers — essential to remove gross soil before the machine cycle.
Sizing the dishwasher to your covers
As a rule of thumb, an undercounter unit covers up to 80 covers per service; a passthrough handles 80–250 covers; a rack conveyor runs 250+. Build in 20–30% headroom for peak surge or Mother's Day-scale events. Glassware and crockery bench requirements scale with rack count — at minimum, allow a 600mm pre-wash bench, the machine, and a 1200mm clean landing bench.
Plumbing and energy considerations
- Hot water feed: Most commercial machines need 55–60°C inlet, not cold. Undersized HWS will choke cycle times and rinse temperatures.
- Drain falls: Ensure the floor waste sits below the machine outlet; pumped-drain models add cost but solve hard cases.
- Power: Glasswashers run 10A 240V; passthrough and conveyor machines need 15A or 32A three-phase. Confirm with the electrician before delivery.
- Chemical dosing: Detergent, rinse aid and (for hard-water areas) a drain pump-out cycle pay back in glassware longevity and HACCP defensibility.
A common scoping mistake is matching the dishwasher to the cover count and ignoring the wash zone footprint. Account for clean and dirty bench length on either side of the machine, dish-rack and glass-rack storage near the line, and a hand-wash basin in the same space — the machine alone is rarely the binding constraint. Plan rack flow to avoid clean-to-dirty crossover, and budget chemicals — detergent, rinse aid, descaler — into the running cost from day one. A glasswash that runs without rinse aid produces water-spotted glassware that comes back from front-of-house faster than it leaves.
Pair with
A working dishwash zone needs the rack and tray storage from commercial shelving, landing benches from stainless steel work bench and the bench-and-rack pre-built layouts in commercial dishwasher stainless bench and rack.