Many restaurants' success depends on how quickly customers can be served with food items that a customer orders and on the quality of the food when it is served. If the rate at which a restaurant prepares food products equals the rate at which those same food products are ordered and sold, a restaurant can theoretically have freshly-prepared foods ready to serve for customers as they arrive. Since it is not always possible to match food production with customer ordering rates, and since certain fast food restaurant customers expect to receive their ordered food items quickly, many fast food restaurants prepare various food items and keep them ready for sale until a customer arrives and purchases a pre-cooked food item.
Holding ovens to keep food warm are well known. Many such ovens allow a cooked food item to be put into the oven from one side of the oven and taken from the oven on the opposite side whereby food preparers add food to the oven and food servers take food from the oven.
While food holding ovens are well known and enable a restaurant service provider to keep food warm until served, a refrigerated food holding cabinet that provides the same or nearly the same functionality might enable a restaurant to keep foods like salads, cold until they are ready for consumption. Unlike a conventional refrigerator, which has a door that opens and closes, and which is awkward to use in many restaurants, a refrigerated, point-of-use holding cabinet would therefore be an improvement over the prior art.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds