Do you often wonder how to properly clean your restaurant kitchen? If so, you might also be wondering about what you should do and when.
Admittedly, cleaning a commercial kitchen is never an easy task. It requires much effort and attention to detail. Although, keeping it clean as well as maintained is something that needs to be done.
A clean kitchen not only provides a safe and healthy workplace for your employees but it also gives your customers more reasons to come back.
Unlike a residential kitchen, cleaning a commercial kitchen involves more steps. And the only way to ensure that you don’t miss a step is by following a kitchen cleaning checklist.
These checklists often make it easy for you or your cleaning staff to keep the kitchen in tip-top shape. Basically, it’s really like a kitchen cleaning schedule.
So, what should you include in a restaurant kitchen cleaning checklist? Well, read on to find out.
A Sample Restaurant Kitchen Cleaning Checklist
Obviously, there are parts of the kitchen that need more attention than others. For example, a meat slicer is often used on a daily basis and needs to be cleaned more frequently than a freezer.
Therefore, it’s important to have a checklist that covers all aspects and parts of the kitchen at the most ideal time. It is preferable to come up with a daily, weekly, monthly, and even, an annual kitchen cleaning schedule. This minimizes the chances of forgetting some things and steps. Below are a few examples of items you should include in your cleaning to-do lists:
Daily Kitchen Cleaning Checklist
Daily cleaning should encompass the most frequently used items. These items comprise of utensils, appliances, floors, as well as table-tops. Daily kitchen duty should include:
- Clean preparation surfaces: You should clean, disinfect, and dry all preparation surfaces and table tops. Advisably, this should also be done after every food preparation.
- Replace foil linings: After a busy day, the foil linings of griddles, grills, and ranges are bound to be worn out.
- Wipe your cooking appliances: When cooking, spills and splashes are always unavoidable. That’s why you have to properly wipe down cooking appliances including the grill, fryer, flattop, and range. Ensure you clean all the edges and greasy spots by using soapy water and a sponge.
- Wash your can openers and meat slicers: This not only keeps them in mint condition but also reduces the chances of grease and fat accumulating on them.
- Clean and dry beverage dispenser heads.
- Clean wall splashes: In case there are splashes on the wall, it’s always better to clean them promptly; before they dry up and become difficult to remove.
- Clean your dishwasher: You can easily achieve this by running hood filters through the washer.
- Mop the floors: In a busy restaurant, it’s impossible to keep the floor clean. But, that’s no excuse to leave dirt and spills all over the floor. Dirty floors can be slippery which, in turn, poses a safety risk. Therefore, you should ensure you wipe spills immediately and then disinfect and mop the whole floor at the end of the day.
- Practice healthy waste disposal methods: At the end of the day, you should dispose of all waste materials. Moreover, disinfect the waste disposal area; it helps to keep pests and bacteria at bay. Lastly, ensure you clean both the interior and exterior of your waste bins.
Weekly Kitchen Cleaning Checklist
Obviously, not everything can be cleaned daily. This is often the case for items that require more time and effort. Below are a few things to include in your weekly restaurant kitchen cleaning checklist:
- Floor drains: One of the easiest ways to steer clear of plumbing blockages is to ensure that your floor drains are clean and clear. That’s why you need to use a drain cleaner at least once a week to keep your floor drains in good condition.
- Ovens: This includes the oven’s walls, racks, and sides. Baking soda and vinegar do wonders. Make sure to remove the racks, thermometer and anything else in the oven.
- De-lime sinks and faucets: With time lime often forms in faucets and sinks. To deter lime damage from occurring in the near future, you should ensure you de-lime your faucets and sinks once every week.
- Clean and sanitize all walk-ins: This helps to keep your restaurant kitchen clean, healthy, and free of bacteria.
Monthly Kitchen Cleaning Checklist
Here are the cleaning tasks you should complete on a monthly basis:
- Clean the grease traps: Since grease accumulation isn’t something that happens overnight, cleaning grease traps daily or weekly can be a waste of time and effort. Instead, empty grease traps once every month. Make sure you get with a professional to get rid of your grease.
- Clean and sanitize your deep freezers: Empty your freezers and wash off all stains and dirt. Thereafter, you should sanitize the freezers to prepare it for use again.
- Dust off the refrigeration coils to improve the refrigerator's efficiency.
- Thoroughly clean all the walls, ceilings, and floors.
- Clean all your coffee machines and microwaves.
Annual Kitchen Cleaning Checklist
There are a few things that can’t be cleaned on a monthly basis, but still, need to be cleaned nonetheless. These items fall under the annual restaurant kitchen cleaning checklist and they include the following:
- Clean vent hoods: This helps to improve your kitchen’s airflow and quality.
- Wash ice machines: Owing to their use and purpose, ice machines rarely get dirty, but that doesn’t mean that you should avoid cleaning them.
- Repaint the kitchen walls if the paint starts peeling off.
- Seal gaps that may appear on the grout: This prevents water and dirt from accumulating beneath your tiles.
There you have it – a list of all the things you need to clean to keep your restaurant kitchen clean and healthy.
How do you benefit from investing so much time and effort in keeping your commercial kitchen clean? Well, as mentioned earlier, the benefits of cleanliness include:
- Building your restaurant’s reputation as a safe and sanitary one.
- Providing a safe and healthy working environment for your employees.
- Cleanliness keeps you in good terms with your local health inspector.
- It will save you a lot of cash in terms of maintenance and repairs in the long run.
Evidently, restaurant kitchen cleaning is never an easy task. It takes a lot of time, effort, and diligence to get the job done properly. But, it’s always worth it when you see your customers coming back.