Your restaurant depends upon cleanliness just as much as it does good food. To keep your health department rating, and to keep your customers happy, it’s critical to have solid processes in place for keeping your kitchen clean.
Before your restaurant even opens, you should put together a document that outlines food handling rules and cleaning requirements, along with a schedule for carrying out these tasks.
The health department can help you by providing you the regulations regarding food handling, and can also provide you with some ideas for keeping your kitchen clean. Here are some things that you must do regularly.
- Sanitize the cooktop and floors. The cooktop must be cleaned and floors must be sanitized daily. Mop up small spills immediately, as these are a fall hazard, and perform an overall mopping at the close of business.
- Sanitize the prep surfaces. Many of the germs left behind by raw meat are left on prep surfaces. Disinfect these every day, and never use the same surface for meat and vegetables without disinfecting between items.
- Replace foil liners daily. If the grill and flattop are lined with foil, this should be replaced daily.
- Clean garbage area daily. Be sure the trash is removed and the area disinfected every day.
- Clean walk in refrigerators with disinfectant at least weekly.
- Clean grease trap weekly. Be sure to use proper grease trap disposal methods to ensure old grease is not clogging up pipes. Talk with a professional company for help with grease trap disposal to keep the kitchen clean and prevent grease fires.
- Clean ovens weekly.
By following this checklist, as well as performing general cleaning, like washing walls and wiping up spills as needed, you will be well on your way to having the cleanest kitchen around.
