Simple Tips That Make Deep Cleaning Your Restaurant Easier

Good service and tasty food isn't enough to lure in customers if a restaurant is visibly dirty. Likewise, even a loyal customer will be turned off if they perceive that the cleanliness of their favorite dining locale has dropped. While deep cleaning a restaurant is an unpleasant necessity, there are a few ways to make this chore easier on staff and management alike.

Avoid Cloth Tablecloths

While they can look elegant, tablecloths also require frequent washing. In between each customer, those crisp tablecloths have to be changed, and the used ones need to be washed, dried, and ironed or steamed to remove wrinkles. It's an additional cost and added labor. Instead, a hard surface table like wood can be equally classy, and much easier to clean. There are also disposable tablecloths that can be placed on tables, often made of a combination of paper and water-repellent poly, which provides the look of cloth without nearly as much work.

Hard Surface Chairs

Much like tablecloths, cushion-backed chairs are additional work to keep clean. While they may not require changing as frequently as the former, they will eventually start to show the wear and tear of frequent use. This is another situation where good quality hard surface furniture, such as wood or something like it, will save time and effort in deep cleaning.

Cleanable Ceiling Tiles

Whether in the fast-moving kitchen or the dining room, stains and splashes somehow get everywhere. On ceilings, walls, furniture—everywhere. It's as important to be able to wipe down walls and ceilings as it is to be able to mop floors. Cleanable ceiling tiles will make this chore faster and easier. In fact, these kinds of tiles are often required by various health departments in restaurants and other high traffic food prep and serving areas.

Leather Menu Holders

Because they’re handled by so many people each day, menus can get grungy quickly, and dirty menus are very much noticed by customers. Cleanable leather menu holders with replaceable paper are high end but easily maintained. A quick wipe at the end of the night, combined with replacing the inner paper menu when needed, will keep these items clean and ready to hand out.

Varied Cleaning Schedule

While it may seem obvious, not every surface of a restaurant needs to be deep cleaned daily. Creating a list of daily cleaning chores, weekly cleaning chores, and monthly cleaning chores is essential. If the daily list is followed carefully, the less frequent deep cleans will go smoother and faster. Procrastination or disorganization will only make this job harder, so being disciplined about daily cleaning will make employees and customers alike happy with the results.

While working in or managing a restaurant can be a lot of fun, it’s vital to keep that restaurant clean and safe for customers. It can be a difficult and time-consuming task, so why not make it as easy as possible? Whether purchasing easily cleanable or disposable equipment and furniture, or simply sticking to a well thought out schedule, having a sparkling clean restaurant doesn't have to be hard.