Published 5 Sep 2023
What is a Restaurant Cleaning Checklist?
A restaurant cleaning checklist is a tool used to maintain a hygienic and organized restaurant facility. It helps to identify defects and damages that need to rectify immediately. Unable to perform restaurant cleaning inspections can cause unsanitary business that may lead to regulatory fines and, worse, business closure.
In this article
- Importance
- Restaurant Cleaning Crucial Areas
- How to Write a Restaurant Cleaning Checklist
- What to Include in a Restaurant Cleaning Checklist
- FAQs about Restaurant Cleaning Checklists
- Follow an Effective Restaurant Cleaning Schedule with SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor)
- Related Restaurant Cleaning Checklist Templates
Importance
Having a dedicated checklist for restaurant cleaning is an important aspect of running one. With a restaurant cleaning checklist, you can ensure that all areas are safe, the ambiance is great, the facilities are operational, and the staff is implementing food safety procedures.
Documenting all restaurant operations and cleaning procedures can also help you stay organized with maintaining your restaurant. By having records you can easily access anytime and anywhere, you can track and identify problems in your restaurant and learn how to better address them. Additionally, having documentation of your restaurant cleaning operations can also help you stay compliant with certain food standards, health regulations, and more.
Restaurant Cleaning Crucial Areas
Restaurant businesses aim to promote a clean and hygienic environment to keep high-quality services. Maintaining cleanliness in the following areas help ensure the health and safety of employees and patrons as well as stay compliant with regulations.
- Kitchen – is the most significant area of a restaurant where food is handled, prepared, and processed. Keeping it clean and sanitized helps to avoid food contamination, health risk incidents, and insect invaders.
- Storage – is where raw materials or manufactured goods are kept. Maintaining it clean and organized helps to track food stores to avoid spoilage and overstock.
- Dining – is one of the factors to consider in providing high-level customer service. A clean, safe, and secure environment promotes the overall appearance of the restaurant and decreases unsatisfied customers.
- Restroom – is an added factor to the restaurant ambiance and presentation. Sanitizing it frequently prevents cross-contamination from employees to food products and eating utensils, as well as the spread of diseases. In many cases, a dirty restroom can turn off guests.
How to Write a Restaurant Cleaning Checklist
There are multiple ways to create and use a restaurant cleaning checklist. To create your own, you must first consider the main areas of the restaurant that needs to be cleaned, as mentioned earlier. From there, you need to decide what needs to be cleaned first and how often.
The order in which you clean your restaurant is entirely up to you. However, it is important to note that you and your staff stick to the schedule for this to ensure your restaurant is consistent.
What to Include in a Restaurant Cleaning Checklist
A good restaurant cleaning checklist is one that is easy to follow, understand, and use. While there is no one right way to create one, an efficient restaurant cleaning checklist prompts you to inspect the following:
- Employee uniform
- Food handling processes
- Floor cleaning practices
- Freezer, refrigerator, and dishwasher temperatures
Here is an example report of a restaurant cleaning checklist in use:
General Restaurant Cleaning Checklist Sample Report
FAQs about Restaurant Cleaning Checklists
Restaurants should clean tables, other furniture, and surfaces with a soapy solution and disposable paper towel. After that, they should be sanitized with bleach or any other disinfectant, which should be left alone to air-dry.
Restaurants should be cleaned daily as much as possible, every after food service done. Cooking utensils and equipment should also be washed and wiped daily. However, deep cleaning can be done weekly or monthly instead.
It is mostly the restaurant supervisors and managers who create and manage restaurant cleaning checklists. These checklists are then usually used by everyone involved in the cleaning process.
Follow an Effective Restaurant Cleaning Schedule with SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor)
SafetyCulture, the world’s most powerful mobile inspection app, can be used when performing inspections or cross-checks across both kitchens and other areas of your restaurant. Set up daily, weekly, or monthly cleaning schedule inspections for your team and save and analyze all reports in the cloud.
To get you started, we have collated the best digital restaurant cleaning checklist templates that you can use from the Public Library. You can edit and download these as you see fit on your needs and export your reports as Word, PDF, CSV, or Excel files. These restaurant cleaning checklists are also printable, should you need to have a physical copy.
You can also use SafetyCulture to:
- Schedule restaurant cleaning tasks and inspections in-app and get alerts as they happen
- Improve overall restaurant management by reporting and addressing issues all in one place
- Create and assign corrective actions to be taken for specific people or roles
- Disseminate information to your staff quickly and effectively through Heads Up
- Attach media and notes to your checklists and reports as proof of compliance or noncompliance
- Generate analytical reports and export them to analyze your cleaning process, problems, and more
Related Restaurant Cleaning Checklist Templates
Daily Restaurant Cleaning Checklist
Use this Daily Restaurant Cleaning Checklist to inspect your restaurant regularly. This covers the front and back of the house cleaning, which includes the waiting area, dining room, restrooms, and kitchen area.
Weekly Restaurant Cleaning Schedule Template
This Weekly Restaurant Cleaning Schedule Template can help you ensure that restaurant kitchen facilities like ovens, dishwashers, refrigerators, and freezers are cleaned, sanitized, and disinfected on a weekly basis. Use SafetyCulture’s scheduling feature to allow managers to digitally assign weekly inspections to team members within the organization and never miss an inspection again.
Monthly Restaurant Kitchen Cleaning Schedule Template
Use this Monthly Restaurant Kitchen Cleaning Schedule Template converted using SafetyCulture to identify defective items and assist you with your restaurant’s monthly assessments. Conduct scheduled audits with this checklist to inspect if general cleaning was performed thoroughly.
Daily Restaurant Kitchen Cleaning Checklist
This Restaurant Kitchen Cleaning Checklist can be used to thoroughly inspect cleanliness and sanitation in different kitchen areas such as food preparation zones, ambient storage, cellar, and freezers. It helps restaurant supervisors evaluate if proper food preparation, handling, and storage were implemented and followed by employees accordingly.
5S Restaurant Cleaning Checklist
Use this 5S Restaurant Cleaning Checklist to help ensure workers follow a standard procedure that applies the 5S principles (Sort (seiri), Set in order (seiton), Shine (seiso), Standardize (seiketsu), and Sustain (shitsuke) to maintain the cleanliness and orderliness of your restaurant. Use SafetyCulture’s scoring feature together with Analytics to give you an insight into how your audits are performing over time.
Restaurant Bathroom Cleaning SOP Checklist
This Bathroom Cleaning Checklist can help restaurant owners and in-house hospitality cleaners perform their tasks more efficiently. Use this as a step-by-step guide to the proper process for cleaning bathroom tiles, mirrors, and drains and ensure SOP compliance.
