On a hot and humid Thursday, Brian Follander found himself in a familiar position, sprawled on a restaurant kitchen floor, staring into the nether regions of a stove that would not light.
A dispatcher from Kitchen Repair Specialists, his employer, had sent Mr. Follander to ABC Kitchen, just north of Union Square, after receiving a distress call. The oven had been acting up for days. Now it stubbornly refused to work, and the first diners were starting to show up for lunch.
Dozens of troubleshooting technicians like Mr. Follander roam New York every day, dispatched by companies like Kitchen Repair Specialists, Kitchen Works and All Service, and their counterparts who repair refrigeration equipment, companies like Day and Nite and Americold.
They have carved out a niche in New York’s restaurant economy by administering the equivalent of cardiopulmonary resuscitation to malfunctioning equipment that can sabotage a dinner service — or ruin thousands of dollars’ worth of food in refrigerated walk-ins.