Cleaning Tasks to Prioritize at Your Restaurant

Regardless of the type of cuisine your restaurant specializes in — be it fast food or fine dining — cleanliness should be among your staff’s foremost priorities. Failing to keep your kitchen and dining area clean can result in sick patrons, negative attention from the Health Department and costly fines.

Fortunately, keeping your restaurant clean doesn’t have to be an arduous chore. Provided you and your staff stay on top of the following tasks, you should have no problem providing patrons with a squeaky-clean dining experience.  

Wipe Down Tables after Every Use

In addition to being unsanitary, improperly bussed tables are notorious for spreading germs and viruses between diners. To prevent this, it’s imperative that every table be thoroughly cleaned after each use. Even without the threat of germs, no customer wants to sit at a table that sticky and dirty. 

Clean Your Storage Units Each Week  

In order to keep your refrigerators and freezers nice and clean, you’ll need to empty them out and give them a good scrubbing at least once a week. Your food is your restaurant’s most important resource, so it’s only fitting that it be stored in a sanitary area. To this end, you’ll also need to frequently check your cooler door gaskets for signs of wear and tear and replace them as necessary.  

Thoroughly Scrub the Kitchen Floor Each Night

It’s very difficult to clean a kitchen floor mid-shift — not to mention dangerous. Since dirty floors are highly conducive to the spread of germs in restaurant kitchens, have your staff give the prep area’s floor a vigorous scrubbing before heading home at night. When performing this task, it’s important that they pay special attention to corners, edges and the areas beneath large pieces of equipment.  

Cleanliness is not something that restaurant owners and managers can take a laid-back approach to. If proper care isn’t taken, the consequences will be unfavorable — for both you and your patrons. In the interest of keeping your restaurant spotless, remember to wipe down your tables after every use, clean your storage units once a week, and vigorously scrub your kitchen floor each night.