I notice most restaurants here use gas, but places like McDonald's and Wendy's, mostly use electric, as well as grocery stores in the deli. Although the schools here, I think some use electric and some gas. My middle school was all electric, in the kitchen and for the heat. In the high school, they have electric in the culinary class room, where the science labs use propane for the bunsen burner. But the school kitchen, I think is mostly electric, but I'm not sure.

I'm thinking some places are all electric if it isn't have a natural gas line, nearby.

In my neighborhood, there is no natural gas. But some people have propane tanks for their generators and barbecue grilles. Although most houses in my neighborhood have electric stoves inside and electric heat. Some have propane water heaters though.

I think that most professional chefs prefer to cook with gas. I know I do, unfortunately we have no gas feed into the kitchen and the cost of fitting it would not be worth it 

I think that most professional chefs prefer to cook with gas. I know I do, unfortunately we have no gas feed into the kitchen and the cost of fitting it would not be worth it 

Well, it is rather difficult to beat 7kW per burner power of a typical gas stove, with electric you are stuck with barely 2kW. And there is not much you may do around that.

For professional devices, when the business does just deep frying (like McDonalds, KFC and similar), the electric fryer is the best so they dont need any gas.
But for "good old" manual cooking you need to have at hand the sheer power of a gas stove, the electric just is not able to deliver...

Well, it is rather difficult to beat 7kW per burner power of a typical gas stove, with electric you are stuck with barely 2kW. And there is not much you may do around that.

With 3PH ovens, you can have 7kW electric heaters and even more.

For professional devices, when the business does just deep frying (like McDonalds, KFC and similar), the electric fryer is the best so they dont need any gas.

Usually deep frying is done with gas. A gas flame which burning at a complete combustion, is significantly hotter than an electrical heater, and can heats up the frying oil much faster as a result.

I think that most professional chefs prefer to cook with gas. I know I do, unfortunately we have no gas feed into the kitchen and the cost of fitting it would not be worth it  

This is exactly the same case here in Israel. At homes, except stoves, which commonly operates on gas, and only rarely on electricity, all heating application, including cooking is done by electricity. In contrast, bakeries and restaurants usually use gas for cooking and frying.

With 3PH ovens, you can have 7kW electric heaters and even more.

I mean 7kW per plate, there are usually 4 burners. The The 7kW is then the total electrical stove power input, single plate never runs on more than one phase.

Usually deep frying is done with gas. A gas flame which burning at a complete combustion, is significantly hotter than an electrical heater, and can heats up the frying oil much faster as a result.
This is exactly the same case here in Israel. At homes, except stoves, which commonly operates on gas, and only rarely on electricity, all heating application, including cooking is done by electricity. In contrast, bakeries and restaurants usually use gas for cooking and frying.

Commercial fast food fryers require tight temperature control (to allow fast, yet controlled frying; we are talking about an industrial production than a culinary thing there) and that is attainable only with electrical appliance. On the other hand the slow warmup of the limited power device is not a problem in fast foods, as it happens only once per day and the thing remains at its set temperature the whole day, so the limited power is not a problem.

The Michelin grade chef needs to warmup his pan or pot for every portion separately, so for that he needs the power of the gas - the restaurant can not afford paying him to just wait for pottery to only warming up for minutes...

At home there is not that much problem to wait few minutes for the pans or pots to warm up, so the cleanness and safety (and low purchase and installation cost) of electric stoves often are worth the annoying extra waiting time.

At home there is not that much problem to wait few minutes for the pans or pots to warm up, so the cleanness and safety (and low purchase and installation cost) of electric stoves often are worth the annoying extra waiting time.

The difference in the time it takes for pans to heat up between induction, which is what we have now, and regular electric hobs is amazing. It's really quick, and I for one don't like waiting around for pans to heat up.

The difference in the time it takes for pans to heat up between induction, which is what we have now, and regular electric hobs is amazing. It's really quick, and I for one don't like waiting around for pans to heat up.

The set of pans that I had wouldn't work on the induction hob, the ferrous content was too low. 
So we had to buy new pans, and got stainless steel ones. My old pans were made of stainless steel, and still looked as good as new after twenty years. 
Yes, they were expensive, but with quality you buy once and don't have to replace them every other year. So in the long run we will save money. 

I have never had a problem with either. You adjust your abilities to compensate for any differences. Simple...

Perhaps I should explain:

The ferrous content of my old set of pans was too low to work on the induction hob, I had been using these pans for 20 years and they were still as good as new.
I bought a new set of stainless steel pans that are compatible with an induction hob. They were expensive, but I hope to get a similar lifespan out of them.

Adjusting abilities has nothing to do with it.

Which did you buy first, the cook plate or the pans? Did you read the instructions before you bought them on what type of cooking device they were intended for? It isn't that difficult to adjust for most.  

We bought a new cooker as the old one had developed a major fault (one of the hotplates had failed and was physically not replaceable). We decided on an induction hob as the cooking characteristics are as close as you can get to gas without actually having gas. Unfortunately, we can't use gas as there is no feed into the kitchen and installing it would be way too expensive. Also, the cooker came at an excellent price as it was end of line and the last one in the store.

As Sammi has already explained, the ferrous content of our old pans was not enough to enable them to work with induction. So we therefore had to get new ones. Simple as that.

Many things do not operate on new devices or new things on old devices as you found out. Sometimes "cheap" deals ending up costing you more in the long run.

Not at all, we knew going into buying a new cooker with an induction hob that it was likely that our existing pans would have to be replaced. The money we saved on the price of the cooker more than paid for a new set of pans. 

I've been going through my poetry, and this is one I wrote at the time we bought our new cooker:

Our brand new cooker
Is quite the looker
The induction hob
Is just the job
And I’m just lovin’
The double oven