Why Is It Important To Keep Restaurant’s Kitchen Clean?
There are many reasons to keep your kitchen nice and clean with the right cleaning supplies. When working in a kitchen it is your home and you spend your time there, therefore it needs to be clean for comfort reasons as well. However, there are many more aspects to this question and in this article, you’re going to learn what those are.
The restaurant’s kitchen needs to be clean because of hygiene, appearance, efficiency, and comfort reasons. Restaurant work includes a lot of cleaning which needs to be in order to get the results that are required from it.
Everyone that has been working or is currently working in the restaurant business is familiar with the saying ” working in a kitchen is 80% cleaning and 20% of cooking” at least the chefs and cooks know this because it is true, more or less.
Contents
The Perks Of A Clean Kitchen And Why It Is Important
Restaurant look and reputation.
You will benefit in many ways when your kitchen is clean. First of all, you will have great hygiene and sanitary in your working environment. This is really important, especially when working with fresh ingredients and food that are sent to customers. Everyone has been in some restaurants that have a dirty and poorly cared overlook and you start to question should you even eat there. That would be a catastrophe when viewing the owner’s side
Cleaning
When the kitchen is clean and washed the cooks will have a much better mood which will result in quality and speed. Imagine if every sink is filled with dirty pans, the floor haves oil and vegetables all over, the counter haven’t been washed in days… It will make everyone anxious and over the edge. However, cleaning is in their responsibility who are currently working a shift and if your co-worker isn’t doing much cleaning it is okay to say so because let’s face it, restaurant kitchens will sometimes get super messy and there’s no way around it. It is a matter of instant cleaning when you are done with the task or when it is time to clean.
Ventilation
If we would do a tour in all the restaurant kitchens in the world and look for a single part of the kitchen which would be the most poorly cleaned, it would be ventilation systems. Most restaurants clean ventilation hoods and filters once or twice a week and that’s how it should be done. If you clean them only once a month or never, you will quickly see the air quality worsen. When preparing food and the ventilation isn’t sucking the smoke and grease your roof will turn yellow and many other items around it as well, it will be hotter in the kitchen as well so ventilation is probably one of the most important things to keep clean. It is a good idea to choose a single day for the week which will always be a ventilation cleaning day.
Organization
Keeping a kitchen clean doesn’t only mean wiping the countertops, shelves, and handles. It is also a matter of organization. It is important that similar items are in the same place, and the most important ones are near you so you won’t need to run off all the way to the other side of the kitchen to get it. Getting hanging hooks is a great way to get the utensils and pans off the tables and 10-different compartments. Shelves in the right spots can mage a drastic difference where you can store your sauces, extra pans, all the menu items, and the list goes on. When things are properly organized and nothing is in the way, everyone feels better, the work goes faster, and the quality is a lot better.
Dishwashing
Nobody loves to wash all the bowls stuck with bread dough and all the big processor parts but it needs to be done. The best way to do it is using the saying ” take it when you go and bring it when you get back”. This means that if you are going to the dishwasher then take some item that is dirty and bring one back that is clean, considering that you don’t have a dishwashing employee present, and even then, it is always good to help. The restaurant works together with all helping each other. So don’t let the dishes pile up because when you run out of kitchen supplies and a huge order comes in because that’s when you are wishing that you had done them sooner. It is also important to clean the dishwasher itself properly because it is one of the most expensive pieces of equipment in the whole kitchen and the most important with it.
Dining Hall
The kitchen isn’t the only place that needs to be cleaned in the restaurant. Customers’ tables, cutlery, glasses, and the whole area where the customer will be is extremely important to be washed and clean. It shows the customer that the restaurant cares about them and isn’t only about the money. If the area is dirty and poorly taken care of that is really, really bad because firstly they won’t come back and secondly, the word travels fast, and if it is a bad word that travels many times faster than a good review of a restaurant.
How To Keep A Kitchen Clean
There are many tools and tricks to keep the kitchen clean at all times. The most basic and usual way is to use kitchen washing supplies such as mops, brooms, brushes, rags, and commercial cleaners. We would recommend that a weekly schedule would be done and the cleaning would be spread out throughout the week so it wouldn’t be a single-day massive operation. When done this way cleaning won’t seem so bad anymore because it will be done in short sprints rather than an all-day mission.
Whenever there is spare time or a quiet hour in the kitchen that is a good idea to cross over some washing tasks. If you are a seasoned restaurant worker you will notice that countertop wiping and cleaning is a strong habit and you won’t need to even think twice to get it done. Repeating and training will make it easier and eventually second nature.
Depending on the kitchen but if it is a big and busy one, a dishwashing employee would be a good idea to hire. I myself have been a dishwasher in my earlier career days and it will help the restaurant massively and the chefs can focus on the cooking and the waiters can focus on taking care of the customers.
A couple of tips that can easily be overlooked are to have multiple garbage and compost bins in every hot spot in the kitchen so reducing the food waste and trash can find its place immediately, and it won’t pile up in the countertops. A Second good tip is that after washing dishes let the water out of the sink right away. It may sound like basic knowledge but sometimes it can be forgotten and the co-workers just bring more dishes to the sink and then there will be a pile of dirty restaurant supplies in the cold and greasy water. When done right away this nasty project can be avoided.
Conclusion
To sum up, after reading the list above it will be super motivating to clean in the kitchen because if it is not done, the core of everything will fall into parts.
As a final tip, it is a good idea to round up all the staff and discuss this in general so everyone has a good idea of what it is that needs to be done, and do a list about the weekdays when certain equipment will be cleaned. After this is done, there will be no doubt that the restaurant’s overlook will be more than appealing.