One of the most important things every restaurant must do to stay in business is keeping the kitchen clean. Nothing kills a business faster than a case of food poisoning, vermin attracted by poor cleaning, or any other such food-related disaster.

Because of this need for absolute cleanliness, we’ve created this quick checklist for keeping things clean and organized in your restaurant kitchen.

Tips for Keeping Your Restaurant Kitchen Clean

 Immediate Cleaning Tasks

• Mop up any spills in any space, whether it’s by the sink, range, or walk-in cooler.
• Disinfect the sink before and after washing dishes.
• Immediately clean any raw meat preparation areas. Never wait on this task. Ever.
• Take out all trash and recycling as soon as containers are full.
• Clean all beverage dispensers, fountain heads, and bars where beverages are prepared by staff or patrons. Drinks tend to leave sticky residues and puddles, so you’ll need to do this several times throughout the day.
• Sweep and mop walk-in coolers and freezers.
• Clean the grill between cooking different types of meats and other items.
• Switch out cutting boards throughout the day.
• Regularly wash any raw meat, poultry, or fish pans, cutting boards, and other items used for preparing raw meats.

 Daily Cleaning Tasks

• Sweep and mop floors.
• Clean the grill, range, griddle, fryer, and flattop.
• Clean underneath all equipment.
• Wipe down coffee makers, microwaves, toasters, meat slicers, tea brewers, and any other similar equipment. Take a walk through the entire kitchen to make sure nothing gets left off the list.
• Clean all back splashes behind ranges and sinks.
• Change all foil lining on ranges, grills, flattops, et cetera.
• Disinfect food preparation areas both at the beginning of the day, throughout the day, and the end of the day.
• Wash all utensils, dishes, pans, glassware, et cetera. Let these items dry overnight.
• Do the laundry. Get all of those rags, uniforms, aprons, tablecloths, napkins, and other fabric goods cleaned and dried.
• Disinfect waste disposal areas, including trash cans.
• Refill and restock all cleaning supplies for the next day.
• Remove all crumbs from bakery equipment, then wipe down with disinfectants.

 Weekly Cleaning Tasks

• Disinfect, and clean out commercial refrigerator and freezers.
• De-lime all faucets and sinks.
• Oil any cast iron cookware.
• Deep clean ovens, including the walls and ceilings.
• Clean all floor mats.
• Use drain cleaner on all floor drains.
• Clean all grease traps on all machines.

 Monthly Cleaning Tasks

• Run sanitizing and cleaning chemicals through coffee makers, tea brewers, et cetera.
• Clean refrigerator coils to prevent the fire hazard of dust build up.
• Wash walls and ceilings.
• Wash your vent hoods.

Keeping Things Clean

To help keep your restaurant’s kitchen clean and up to code, you need to have an appropriate and sufficient organizational system in place. Once things are organized, follow the cleaning checklist daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly to keep things in their proper place and clean enough to eat off of.
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