DOES THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT REQUIRE 3 COMPARTMENT SINKS?
Are 3 compartment sinks really required for commercial bars? What if you prefer automatic glass washers? Discover the bar design secret to pass a health department inspection and still have a glass washer.
3 COMPARTMENT SINKS vs GLASS WASHERS
The local health department just informed one of our clients that our two-station bar needs a 3 compartment sink. This is a very archaic approach, but nonetheless, these are everyday problems. The majority of our clients prefer (automatic) glass washers and it’s not uncommon for health departments to tell them that they must have a 3 compartment sink. In many instances, the requirement for 3 compartment sinks becomes a deal-breaker, due to a lack of space. Don’t despair!
HOW TO INCORPORATE 3 COMPARTMENT SINKS AND GLASS WASHERS
There’s a simple workaround for this, as shown in the sketch below.
- On the left is a “Traditional Layout” of a bartender station with two pieces of bar equipment (highlighted in red).
- Eliminate these two items.
- Now refer to the “Revised Layout” on the right.
- The equipment in the “Traditional Layout” is replaced by a Glastender 3 compartment sink with a sideboard, model #TSA-48L-S.
- Now add a 55 1/2″L single speedrail.
- We now have the required 3 compartment sink. Now what?
- Glastender offers a 36″ x 19″ drainboard cover, which enables the sink to become a de facto drainboard!
With this workaround the glass washer becomes the primary washing method.
A word of caution: always present your bar equipment layout to the local health department. Never assume that this idea will be automatically accepted. In my experience, partnering this and other ideas with the local health department will likely lead to an approval. Best of luck!
THE SPEEDRAIL IS CRITICAL
Although we lost the tiered bottle display, we replaced it with the 55 1/2″ speedrail, which. The “Revised Layout” features 7.5 feet of bottles of speedrail storage, which is perfect. Now you have the best of both worlds! You can now use the automatic glass washer, as intended, and for the health department purposes you have the 3 compartment sink. I cover this in greater detail in another post.
DISCLAIMER: The above video and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. This helps support the channel and allows us to continue to make videos like this. Thank you for the support!
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