How Often Should a Restaurant Kitchen Be Cleaned?
The quick answer: as a restaurant owner, the best practice is to clean your kitchen after every food service. Moreover, cleaning should ideally continue even during food preparations, as activities such as wiping down counters help prevent cross-contamination.
Besides regular cleaning, deep cleaning is equally essential. Food service establishments are mandated by law to schedule deep cleaning at six-month intervals.
Now that we have established the basic expectations for restaurant kitchen cleaning let’s dig deeper into the importance of consistent cleanliness. In the following sections, we’ll also cover how hiring commercial restaurant cleaning services can help you keep your establishment compliant with health and safety regulations.
Restaurant Kitchen Cleaning: General Guidelines
Your overall goal is to maintain a clean and safe environment for food preparation all the time. When it comes to daily cleaning, you want to ensure your surfaces, utensils, cooking appliances, walls, and floors are cleaned after every food service.
As for deep cleaning, your legal obligation is to schedule a service once every six months. However, it’s recommended that you stay ahead of the game by hiring deep cleaning services in Richmond every three months. This more rigorous schedule helps ensure a safe and healthy environment for both your diners and kitchen staff.
Areas and Items to Include in Your Cleaning To-Do List
While covering every area of your kitchen is important, here are some of the places and items that tend to harbor the most germs and, consequently, require more attention:
- Soda fountain nozzles
- Ice machine
- Meat slicers
- Under and behind kitchen equipment
- Walls
- Fans and lighting
- Outdoor garbage
It’s also essential to run through areas that aren’t in plain view, like the following:
- Kitchen hoods and exhaust fans, which tend to accumulate grease
- Grease traps
- All sides of appliances
- Floor mats
Importance of Maintaining a Clean Commercial Kitchen
Keeping your restaurant clean is not simply a matter of being hygienic. It’s also crucial in securing business compliance, achieving food safety, and ensuring customer satisfaction.
Here are some reasons why it pays to maintain a clean commercial kitchen:
- Food Safety: Failing to clean your restaurant equipment regularly means risking contaminating the food you serve your customers.
- Health and Safety Compliance: Restaurants must comply with various health and safety requirements. Non-compliance can mean facing hefty fines and even potentially losing your license.
- Employee Morale: No one wants to work in a dirty or unsafe environment, so keeping your kitchen tidy can help boost employee morale.
- Customer Satisfaction: Maintaining a clean and healthy kitchen is as important as offering excellent customer service and great-tasting food to keep your patrons happy.
What Happens When a Kitchen Fails To Maintain Cleanliness?
As mentioned, unsanitary kitchens can face heavy fines and risk closure, as their continued operation can pose health hazards to customers. Moreover, grease and grime left unchecked are fire hazards that endanger both the diners and the kitchen staff.
Why Hire Commercial Restaurant Cleaning Services
Hiring professional cleaning services in Richmond can significantly reduce your risks of spreading foodborne illnesses or falling victim to fire accidents.
It’s also worth noting that having trained Richmond commercial cleaners takes the burden of performing regular and deep cleans away from your staff. It can be challenging for your cooks to prepare and serve food and simultaneously attend to your kitchen’s cleaning needs. On top of that, they may not have the expertise to adequately clean and maintain their work area like a restaurant cleaning company can.
What Do Commercial Restaurant Cleaning Services Include?
A professional restaurant cleaning company uses the best available products and equipment to perform a range of services, including but not limited to the following:
- Deep cleaning floor mats and other flooring surfaces
- Deep cleaning walls and ceilings
- Emptying and cleaning out grease traps
- Degreasing and deep cleaning kitchen hoods and exhaust fans
- Deep cleaning appliances and all kitchen equipment
- Cleaning and sanitizing sinks, countertops, and other work surfaces
Ultimately, some Richmond commercial cleaners offer the flexibility to work around your schedule so that cleaning doesn’t disrupt your operations.
Take the First Step Toward Enjoying a Consistently Clean Restaurant
An unsanitary restaurant kitchen can become a source of health issues that could ultimately cause customers to become ill. Moreover, it’s a violation of state and federal guidelines that put you at risk of being fined or even shut down.
Still, maintaining a clean kitchen throughout the day is not an easy task. So if you want assistance in achieving a consistently grease and germ-free environment, consider teaming up with a GVTA LLC Cleaning & Disinfecting certified franchisee near you.
They are cleaning professionals qualified to clean food service establishments. Equipped with state-of-the-art cleaning systems and equipment, they can maintain your food prep areas and dining rooms according to federal, state, and municipal health and safety regulations. Call (804) 531-3106 to learn more about their cleaning services in Richmond.