I am starting a legal bakery in my garage. I have already checked out regulations and spoken with the health department, zoning and permits.

I am trying to plan out how to arrange everything once the bakery is set up, it is 18 x 20 feet. Big open area. The double doors are on the opposite wall as the door that leads into our house. The door is over by the corner, I have to put all the plumbing on that wall, as it butts the house, where the plumbing is coming from. I don't know how to make it all "flow", but the place I used to work at had it all very awkward. Icing was 30 feet away from the bowls and pastry bags, the tips and couplers were 10 feet behind them, and the coloring gels were 10 feet off to left of them, spoons were 15 feet caty-cornered from them, but you had to walk around a big table!! It was a work out! lol! So i know that I want all that close together, but I am stumped as to how it should all lay out.

Plus, when making batter, we used mixes that were 25 feet from the mixer, eggs that were in a fridge 25 feet away in the opposite direction of the mixes, and pans were in the basement!

How do you legal bakers keep this stuff organized? Got any pictures?

Congrats! Now you get the chance to organize it for what works best for you with nothing being 25 feet away! (You can store a lot nearby with handy wire shelving.)

have you talked with your health dept? They are very helpful in this regard and in my area, they also have to approve the setup and flow. the logic is that if it's inconvenient for me to get to the refrigerator, then I'm more likely to get more than I need in one trip and just let it set on the counter for longer than necessary .... outside safe food temp control.

It should have a logical flow. From delivery to storage to mixing to baking to cooling to clean up. If you are making too many X's in your flow pattern, you need to re-evalute it.

Whoa, I had no ides that they needed to approve the "flow" of things! Someone should really get on the bakery I used to work at! (In addition to the mice and roaches and spatula licking...YES, I anonymously turned them in, nothing happened.)

I had my whole layout approved by the health dept and the engineering dept only to find that my layout would be about $10,000 more than an alternative once the plumber and electrician gave their prices. I went back to health and engineering dept with my new, more cost-effective layout. For example, I had my stoves and ovens on an inside wall 25 feet from an exterior wall. The cost of venting that far was prohibitive.