What Does Ghost Kitchen Commissary Engineering Cover?

Ghost kitchen and commissary engineering is the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design of a multi-tenant commercial cooking facility. The package typically includes Type I grease exhaust systems with make-up air for each cooking tenant, gas service sized for simultaneous cooking loads, plumbing with grease interceptors and health-department-compliant fixtures, electrical distribution for heavy cooking equipment, fire protection including hood suppression coordination, and ventilation design that keeps cooking odors and heat out of neighboring spaces. The density is what makes these buildings special. A single restaurant has one kitchen's worth of exhaust, gas, and grease to manage. A ghost kitchen has a dozen, stacked side by side, all running at dinner rush simultaneously. Every shared system — the roof structure carrying the exhaust fans, the gas service, the grease interceptor, the electrical service — has to be sized for everybody cooking at once, because that's exactly what happens.

Grease exhaust is the headline system: Type I hoods over grease-producing appliances, welded grease duct routed to the roof with proper clearances to combustibles, and exhaust fans sized per code. Each tenant's system stands alone. Make-up air is its twin — tempered outside air delivered to replace what's exhausted, so the building stays balanced. Undersize it and the whole facility fights itself. Plumbing centers on the grease interceptor — sized for the combined flow of all tenants — plus floor drains, mop sinks, and hand sinks per the health department's plan review. Gas service has to carry the connected load of every range, fryer, and oven firing at once. Electrical follows the same logic: cooking equipment is power-hungry, and the service, panels, and feeders are sized for coincident peak. Fire protection ties it together with hood suppression systems coordinated with the building sprinkler design.

Tenant count and cooking type drive everything — a building of bakeries engineers very differently from a building of fry-heavy concepts. Existing buildings converted to ghost kitchens add structural and routing constraints that new construction doesn't have. Lock the tenant mix and equipment lists early; the MEP design is only as good as the loads it's given.

• Cooking type: solid-fuel and heavy grease cooking demand more exhaust and fire protection than baking
• Tenant count: each additional kitchen adds a full exhaust, gas, and plumbing branch
• New vs. conversion: existing buildings constrain duct routing, gas service upgrades, and roof loads
• Health department jurisdiction: plan review requirements vary and drive fixture and finish decisions
• Shared vs. dedicated equipment: commissary dishwashing and prep areas add central plumbing loads