As a restaurant owner, do you know what the biggest concern of your customers might be? Maybe it is the restaurant menu, the quality of the food, the friendliness or competency of your staff? All of these are quite important, but arguably the most important aspect of a successful restaurant is cleanliness of the equipment, restaurant furniture, etc. This blog covers the vitally important topic of restaurant cleanliness and how to accomplish it.
Importance of Cleanliness in Restaurant
Whether a restaurant’s dining area, kitchen and restroom facilities are clean is highly visible to customers. One of the biggest complaints customers have is if a restaurant is dirty. The majority of customers will not return to a restaurant that doesn’t appear clean. In a restaurant atmosphere, in unlike retail stores and other service industries, an improper cleaning can be unsanitary. Unsanitary conditions can impact customer’s health and well being. A dirty kitchen can spread bacteria and disease.
Dirty restaurant conditions are unattractive, as well as being unhealthy. Restaurant customers go out to eat, relax and enjoy the company of friends or family. A messy dining area is not relaxing to customers, as they will probably be worried about the quality of their food and service. Restaurants that don’t appear to care about cleanliness may appear to not care about the quality of their food and staff.
How to Clean Restaurant?
- A starting point to find out the cleanliness level of your restaurant can be to visit the restaurants of your competitors.
- It is easy to assume your restaurant is as clean as possible, but when you are in your restaurant every day, you may naturally turn a blind eye to some cleanliness issues.
- Observing your restaurant competition will give you a true comparison of how clean your restaurant is currently.
- Check out the cleanliness of your competitors’ staff, dining area, restroom facilities and kitchen. You may be pleasantly surprised to see that you are the white glove standard of restaurant cleanliness.
- Once you have properly gauged the cleanliness level of your restaurant, take steps to implement a cleaning and maintenance plan for every aspect of your restaurant.
- Establish restaurant cleaning as a top priority for everyone on the restaurant staff, from top management to all part time employees.
- Create a cleaning schedule for each category of your restaurant, from kitchen to dining to restrooms and restaurant furniture.
- It is easy when overworked or understaffed to let cleaning slide, but restaurant cleanliness is something every customer can see for themselves and can really impact the restaurant’s bottom line. You can’t hide the fact that a restaurant is dirty.
Restaurant Cleaning Checklist
Check out the places that needs to be keep clean every time.
1. Restaurant Kitchen Cleaning
The restaurant kitchen needs to be the cleanest place in a restaurant. All surfaces need to be properly cleaned, from the floors to counter tops and all food storage areas. Be sure to use cleaning materials and equipment that are food-safe, and meant for use in kitchens.
Ensure that food is handled properly by cooks and chefs, and stored at appropriate temperatures. The added bonus of keeping everything in the kitchen as clean and sanitary as possible is that you shouldn’t have any issues when the restaurant health inspector comes to pay you a visit.
2. Cleaning The Dining Area
Just as with the kitchen, the dining area needs to be as clean as possible. Make sure all dishes, glasses and eating utensils are run through a dishwasher with the proper heat temperature level to ensure sanitation. Wipe up spills off dining surfaces quickly.
Clean the restaurant menus with a disinfectant or use paper restaurant menus that can be disposed of if dirty or spilled on, as it’s been shown that restaurant menus can transfer harmful bacteria from one customer to another. Ensure any food or drinks spilled on the floor are quickly cleaned up.
3. Cleaning Restaurant Furniture
Your restaurant tables and chairs need to be properly cleaned as well. Quickly wipe up spills from restaurant tables with warm water and mild soap and dry with a soft cloth. Clean and dry tables between each group of diners, as no one wants to eat from a previous group’s dirty table. Wipe restaurant chairs, barstools and booths between customers, and use a wet cloth with mild soap approved for restaurant furniture for cleaning if there are any spills or stains.
If your table tops sustain any scratches or gouges, try to have these repaired as quickly as possible. These scratches or gouges could hold on to food particles, make the tables unsanitary and/or hard to clean. An added bonus of properly cleaned and maintained restaurant table and chair is that it will last longer.
4. Cleaning Restaurant Restrooms
As any restaurant owner might guess, it is vital to maintain clean restrooms. A dirty bathroom is unsanitary and can easily spread germs and disease from one customer to another. Make sure that there is always someone checking the restrooms for properly functioning water faucets and toilets, and that that the hand soap containers, toilet paper and paper towel holders are always well stocked. If a customer can’t wash their hands because the soap container is empty, they can easily assume your employees have no way to wash their hands as well. As mentioned above, make cleaning all aspects of the restaurant a priority. Create a daily cleaning and inspection schedule, and establish cleaning as a priority with all staff members.
