Restaurant Cleaning

Cleaning a restaurant can be a pain if your staff is hard to motivate. Telling them what to do and leaving chore sheets may be an idea, but getting your hands dirty and leading the way will not only motivate, but show them the standards you expect to see when they clean the restaurant.

Do a walk-through with your entire team and get them to spot things that need to be cleaned and decide, as a team, how often the chores should be done.. Put the team in charge of deciding how clean is clean, instead of dictating to them. Give them some ownership and they will respond well. Instead of starting your restaurant-clean walk at the waiter’s area, start outside the front door – where the customers come in. First impressions count.

An aproned waiter cleaning the path outside the front of a restaurant is a wonderful image: it not only suggests a clean restaurant, but it suggests pride and dedication to the food and the customers. This is worth doing just before the lunch rush – put a cheery member of staff outside to sweep the pavement and/or clean the windows and interact with passers-by.

Keep cleaning inside too: cleaning restaurant tables and chairs is paramount – no-one wants to sit in yesterday’s spilled spaghetti – to clean a table think it a whole, not just the top. Clean underneath, where grubby hands wander and the legs, where unsightly spills can collect. Soda water is especially good at getting rid of tough stains. Throw over a couple of table cloths, so when one diner leaves you just have to pull the top-cloth off and lay up for the next cover.

When laying the tables, you may spot spots on your stainless steel cutlery – a little white spirit on a cloth will get rid of them quickly, but don’t forget to clean them with water before using them for guests! Also, no customer will be impressed by streaky glasses – soak them in vinegar or bicarbonate of soda then rinse and dry – lovely.

Clean the floors with vacuum or mop – corners included – at the end of each day; if you have an empty restaurant at the end of a busy shift, throw a vacuum around quickly to prepare for the evening. A clean duster, once a day, around the light fittings and across the tops of mirrors and pictures will stop any greasy, dusty build-up and keep the glitter in your restaurant.

Similarly, each day someone should be in charge of keeping the toilets clean. With toilets, it’s important to clean everything – not just the toilet itself. Top up the dispensers and keep extras close-to-hand, to avoid frantic hunts for loo roll mid-shift. If there is calcium build-up around the taps, a solution of vinegar, detergent and a lime cleaner will sort them out almost immediately. Every week, scrub the walls and floor as well as the dispenser and dryers. It’s true that guests will treat a clean bathroom far nicer than a mucky one.

Once a month, clean the walls and every four to six months get a carpet cleaning firm in to deep clean your carpet. With such high traffic each day, your carpet will last much longer if you take care of it.

All restaurants have their own needs, but getting the waiting team on board – whether you have professional cleaners clean each morning or not – will give them more pride in their restaurant.