Complete Restaurant Cleaning Check List

If you are assigned to a hotel’s restaurant or kitchen, you need to know how to clean it. You should also know when to do it and how often to do it. It might be helpful if you have a check list that you can go through, so you know you will be able to give the kitchen a thorough cleaning. Restaurant kitchens are quite tricky to clean if you do not know how to do it properly – and you should! After all, this is the place where foods are prepared and if you do not clean it properly, you could end up with customers complaining of food poisoning or something worst.

There are some things that chefs and kitchen staff need to do immediately without waiting for the Stewarding Department to do these things for them. These are the things that should be done while the work is going on or immediately after a certain cooking task is completed. For instance, the kitchen staff should immediately clean and wipe down various cooking areas the minute they are finished with a particular task. The grill should be clean after cooking meat or fish. They also need to change cutting boards after use or clean rags or cloths after using them. They also need to empty trash bins. Of course, some of these tasks can be left to the Stewarding Department as part of the department’s daily cleaning activities.

Daily Cleaning Checklist

• Clean the fryers, grease traps, grill, slicers and other kitchen equipment used.
• Replace foil linings of cooking stoves, flattops, range and grills.
• Clean and wash cooking tools like the can opener.
• Clean hood filters in the dishwasher.
• Wipe, wash and sanitize cooking surfaces including cutting boards, steam tables and prep tables.
• Sweep and mop the floor and walk-in refrigerator.
• Wash floor mats and sanitize cleaning rags or cloths.
• Put cleaning rags, aprons and coats in laundry.
• Empty and put away cleaning equipment like sanitizing buckets

Weekly Cleaning Checklist

Remove dirt, grime and lime from sinks and faucets
• Clean coffee machine, oven and other kitchen equipment.
• Empty, clean and sanitize reach-in coolers
• Pour drain cleaners on kitchen drains.

Monthly Cleaning Checklist

• Empty, clean and sanitize freezer and ice machine.
• Clean the back of ovens, stoves, range, grills, flattops and fryers in order to avoid build up of dirt and grease
• Calibrate kitchen ovens and thermometers
• Sharpen knives and slicers
• Wash or wipe down floor, wall, ceilings and dry storage area thoroughly.
• Replace mouse traps or other pest traps.