Why nobody talks about how long it takes to level a flattop grill

I spent three hours last Tuesday trying to get our main flattop level. Thought it was just a simple twist of the legs, right? Wrong. The floor in that old diner dips like a bowl. I had a level on it, looked fine, poured water on it and it all ran straight to the back. Ended up shimming the whole thing with stainless washers, like 14 of them stacked on the front left leg. Got it perfect after 45 minutes of fiddling but then the pilot light wouldn't stay lit because I tilted the gas line too much. Had to undo half the shims and start over. Total time was close to 4 hours for something I thought would take 15 minutes. Anyone else ever fight a piece of equipment for half a shift over something dumb like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

skyler_adams16d agoTop Commenter

Half a shift over something dumb" is basically my whole life in food service. I spent two hours once trying to fix a reach-in freezer that just needed to be unplugged and plugged back in. You'd think I'd learn, but nope.

hugo_nelson16d ago

Rolled a prep table across the kitchen once just to realize the wheel was loose, not the leg. Spent a whole hour taking apart the caster and cleaning old grease off it before I noticed the lock washer was just sitting on the floor. Felt like a genius when I put it back on and it worked in two seconds. That's the thing about this job, you can outsmart yourself real easy and make a ten minute fix turn into a whole afternoon project.