When people go out to eat at any restaurant (even a fast-food joint), they trust that the restaurant keeps its kitchen in good order so that there’s little to no risk of illness for the patrons. So why is it so many restaurants go out of business even when it appeared they had hundreds or thousands of people going in and out of their establishments and enjoying their food?
Well, more often than not, it is all due to not meeting proper health, safety, and sanitization codes in their kitchens, which tends to result in patrons and workers getting sick. There are times when the workers themselves are not able to keep the kitchen spotless when making the food, or between rushes. The job itself is exhausting for those who do the cooking and cleaning. There are also times when, in the midst of cleaning, certain chemicals are not being properly changed out, or are weakened over time, and stored in improper places to save time during rushes.
The point being, the job of cleaning and maintaining the commercial kitchen on a strict schedule doesn’t always get done. As such, the commercial kitchen quickly becomes the proverbial elephant in the room, as it absolutely has to be kept clean in order to protect workers and patrons alike.
So, what can be done to make sure that commercial kitchens large and small be kept spotless in a timely fashion, even in the midst of a restaurant’s busiest hours?
Set a schedule of cleaning times that must be strictly followed.
It is up to each establishment when those times are set, but it still goes without saying that workers and management need to set times in which kitchen workers have to either do an initial cleaning before each workday, bring a kitchen back into proper order throughout the day, and do a final cleaning before officially closing out each day. It may be best to do all three, actually, depending on the level of business being done at each establishment. Perhaps an upscale restaurant has most of its business done during the dinner hour; it will be on the staff to determine when the cleaning times are set from an hour or so before the dinner time hits to around an hour or two after the day is done. For those serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the cleaning times will need to be set more often.
In addition, it may also be wise to divide cleaning times between what needs to be done daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly in order to ensure tasks on all levels are taken care of. As always, the important thing is that workers stick to that schedule as ordered, so that cleanliness is properly maintained.
Set (and enforce) rules and guidelines for how to clean the kitchen.
It doesn’t matter how often the kitchen is getting cleaned throughout the day if it is not getting cleaned properly. Each establishment will need to train its staff on how to properly clean the commercial kitchen, and enforce those rules regularly. Management may need to look into how things are being done, and grade whether things are being done right. If the kitchen is being cleaned properly, then the management should every so often reward the staff for doing so in order to keep up morale. If the kitchen is not being cleaned properly, then management should take steps to either correct what is not being done well, and let staff members go if things don’t improve.
Set up rules and guidelines in different visible places throughout the kitchen as reminders to the staff of what needs to be done, how the tasks should be done, and how often the tasks should be done. Also, management should conduct regular or semi-regular meetings to make sure all staff are on the same page with how to handle the commercial kitchen throughout the day.
Hire people who will do the job right
Obviously, no amount of scheduling the cleaning or going on and on to staff about how to do the job will do anything to keep the kitchen clean unless you have people hired on as staff who care about getting the job done right. Whether their motive is solely for earning that paycheck every week (because they need it for everything), or because they want to one day run their own restaurant, and are thus learning the business by working the job, each establishment should hire on only people who will be reliable to keep the kitchen clean and the restaurant in business. This will go a long way to ensure the establishment stays up and running, and the kitchen perfectly clean and ready to use for cooking and serving their patrons.
The reasons behind keeping a commercial clean are obvious, especially during these times with a pandemic. It is up to each establishment to look at their own restaurant and how it is being run and to make improvements accordingly. However, these three main points should serve as a good guideline for how staff and management can get a handle on their commercial kitchens, and increase their establishment’s chances of success.