Four Eyed Frog here, I’ve been researching a lot of the Alto-Shaam commercial restaurant equipment One Fat Frog has in their Orlando warehouse and in doing so, I’ve learned a lot about Alto-Shaam and their founder, Jerry Maahs, who passed away in 2006 at 74.

Maahs founded Alto-Shaam (Maahs backwords) in 1955 after spending 13 years in the restaurant industry. With Alto-Shaam, Maahs wanted to focus on the development of commercial restaurant equipment for the food service industry. Having been in the industry for over a decade, Maahs’ goal was to have Alto-Shaam products address the restaurant equipment problems of the foodservice operator.

Maahs helped the develop the Alto-Shaam low-temperature cook-and-hold series of commercial restaurant equipment, changing how restaurant equipment cooked food. The Alto-Shaam holding equipment line aimed at replacing steam tables. The Alto-Shaam line of holding equipment debuted at a food show in Chicago.