How to Keep Your Restaurant Kitchen Clean
A dirty kitchen produces foul-tasting food at best -- and dangerous food poisoning at worst. State inspectors regularly check restaurant kitchens for cleanliness and food handling standards for this very reason. However, pride of place for your restaurant should lead you to want to keep it spotlessly clean in any case. Although you may be able to keep your restaurant kitchen clean with a haphazard, case-by-case approach, you'll get better results by setting up a system all employees observe throughout the days and weeks.
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Instructions
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Make a list of every area of your restaurant kitchen. This includes room descriptions and a slot for every "station" such as prep tables, stoves and refrigerators.
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Write each cleaning task for every area you listed in the kitchen. Examples include clearing the surface, scrubbing, disinfecting, mopping, emptying garbage and rotating stock.
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Assign a daily, weekly or monthly status to each cleaning task. For example, sweeping and mopping should happen at least daily, while rotating stock is usually a weekly activity.
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Make daily checklists for each station in the restaurant kitchen. Employees should use these lists at closing and during lulls in business to keep the restaurant clean.
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Schedule weekly tasks according to when they need to be done. Tasks that rely on events -- such as rotating stock when new stock comes in -- will be schedules when appropriate. Schedule other tasks for days have the least dependent events scheduled. Arrange the daily schedule and staffing for those days so that there are time and personnel to get it done.
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Schedule monthly tasks at the most appropriate time, phrased either as a specific date -- the 20th of the month, for example -- or as a day of the month, i.e. the third Thursday of every month. If the monthly tasks are very time-consuming, you may want to schedule extra hours before or after the shift, or bring on personnel specifically for the job.
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Train all employees, and all new hires, on the cleaning system. Make it the responsibility of shift supervisors and managers to check that all parts of your cleaning list are accomplished before they release staff at end of shift.
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Tips & Warnings
Check on how well your lists are being followed; otherwise, human nature will eventually lead to the tasks being done poorly or not at all. Observe the golden rule of management: "Inspect what you expect, or you'll get no respect."
