Kitchen operations glossary · Stewarding & dish pit
What Is Pot Wash?
Also called: potwash, pot sink, pot washer
Pot wash is the hand-washing of cookware — stock pots, sauté pans, hotel pans, mixing bowls and small equipment — that is too large, too soiled or too delicate for a dish machine. The term names both the sink station where that work happens and, in some operations, the person who works it.
Why it is separated from the dish pit
Cookware behaves differently from tableware. It arrives with baked-on residue that needs soaking and scrubbing, it does not rack, and a single stock pot can occupy a machine cycle that fifty plates should have used. Separating the pot sink keeps machine throughput available for the ware that service actually waits on.
The work is also slower and heavier: soak, scrub, rinse, sanitise, air dry, and return to the line hot-side where the cooks need it back within the same service.
What goes through it
- Stock pots, braisers, rondeaux and sauté pans
- Hotel pans and sheet pans, including burnt-on roasting trays
- Mixing bowls, china caps, chinois and strainers
- Cutting boards and small equipment parts — mixer attachments, slicer components
- Anything the manufacturer marks as not machine safe
Frequently asked questions
Covering pot wash on a heavy prep day
Large prep days and event turnarounds generate cookware volume the regular dish position cannot absorb alongside tableware. A second back-of-house body for the shift is the usual fix.