The best way to ensure employees clean your kitchen correctly is to use the same management techniques you use in other hotel areas. Maintaining a strict schedule and assigning each task is the only way to prevent vital steps from being overlooked. Forgetting even one step, no matter how small it may seem, puts your kitchen's cleanliness at risk.
Below you'll find a comprehensive hotel kitchen cleaning checklist you can follow every day. When combined with regular incidental cleaning (like wiping down prep surfaces and cleaning spills throughout the day), you'll find your kitchen cleaning routine will be much more comprehensive. What's more, your staff will be much more efficient.
Read more: Hotel Checklists To Improve Your Hotel Service Delivery
Daily Hotel Cleaning Checklist
Your staff needs to complete these tasks every day to maintain cleanliness. Since these jobs are necessary for the kitchen to function, your employees probably perform them instinctively already. However, using a daily hotel cleaning checklist will keep them on task regardless.
- Disinfect every surface the staff use for food preparation. Employees may do this step at the start of or end of a shift. However, there's no harm in doing both for the sake of ensuring everything is clean.
- Brush and clean your grill.
- Make sure all cleaning rags and aprons are in the dirty laundry bag or basket. Separate rags and aprons, and clean them separately too.
- Wipe down and clean each cooking surface and board used in the kitchen. Some components are small enough to wash by hand in a sink. Others may need to be machine washed due to their size.
- Carefully empty out and thoroughly clean out all your grease traps.
- Wash down rubber floor mats and mop the floors and walkways. For safety reasons, floor cleaning should do this at the end of the day.
- Clean all food prep items, including knives, pots, and pans. Staff should clean potentially dangerous equipment like meat slicers in a dishwasher. Pieces that require specialized cleaning or maintenance should be washed separately from the rest.
- If they are unclean, even if only in a few spots, scrub the walls in both the kitchen and dish room.
- Remove the hood filters used for ventilation and manually scrub them inside and out. Some kitchens do this once a week or even once a month, but daily cleaning eliminates build-up early on. Unclean hood filters pose a significant health risk to kitchen workers.
Weekly Kitchen Cleaning Checklist for Hotel
Areas that your employees interact with less or require a weekly hotel kitchen cleaning checklist can cover less maintenance. It's best to pick a day at the end of your week to perform these tasks for simplicity's sake. Despite only occurring once a week, these objectives tend to be more involved because they require specialized cleaning products.
- Treat your sinks and faucets to keep them free of chemical and mineral build-up. Use commercial-grade cleaners and wear appropriate safety equipment when using them. This task is simple enough that you shouldn't need to hire an outside cleaner to do it.
- Wipe down and clean out all drink dispensers, including coffee makers. Be sure to follow the manufacturer's cleaning instructions to avoid causing damage.
- Clean all of your drains, including those on the floor. Though they're much wider than the drains in your sinks, the cumulation of debris will block them eventually if you don't treat them properly. If you find a drain (be it in your sink or floor) has become clogged, you may have to call a specialist to remove the blockage.
- Disassemble and clean the components of your ovens and large cooking appliances. Empty (if necessary) your smokers, ovens, and violators and wipe down their insides by hand. Oven racks, burners, drip pans, and other removable parts can be machine washed instead.
- Do a deep-clean of your walk-in, top to bottom, including all shelves. You should also use this opportunity to check the expiration dates of the items in your walk-in. We recommend maintaining and regularly updating a list to keep a record of when things will expire.
- Check and clean all of your bug and pest traps. You should check these items more frequently when using traps that are single-use or have limited capacity. Your staff can check larger traps less often without causing a health risk.
Monthly Hotel Kitchen Cleaning Checklist
Your kitchen crew can perform these final tasks just once a month. Doing them more frequently could prove excessive, damaging, and unnecessarily time-consuming. Once again, it's better to perform these tasks after hours so everything will be ready at the start of the next day.
- Thoroughly clean your stand-alone refrigerators and freezers (not your walk-in). Pay special attention to the electrical components, as build-up can interfere with motors and hinder the machines' ability to cool. Also, check that temperature readings are still accurate; if they aren't, you may need a specialist to identify the problem.
- Carefully wipe down your ventilation hoods (not the vent filters). Filter cleaning should take place every day, but the hoods don't need similar treatment. That's because, while the filters catch the most air-born material, a lesser amount will still attach to the inside of the hood.
- Sharpen all slicing and cutting tools and devices used on the line. Because they cause serious harm, it's best to let the employees who use them most clean them.
- Clean your dry storage area and check the expiration dates of any items inside.
- Clean out your ice machine and all of its connections, such as drains.
- Wash behind and underneath all of your cooking appliances. Debris on the floor tends to collect underneath stoves and cabinets, while heat causes grime from oils and cooking sprays to form on the walls. It would be best if you used this time to wipe down all the connections to your appliances, too.
- Check and refill your first aid kits if need be.
How Booking Ninjas Can Help With Your Hotel Cleaning Checklist
Our property management software does more than keep track of guests at your hotels. You can create a cleaning checklist for hotel staff to follow and assign and schedule tasks to your crew. You can manage the work done in all areas of your hotel, from the lobby and guest services to custodial and even kitchen.
Simplify your cleaning checklist for hotel staff and watch as efficiency increases. With digital engagement and data analysis tools at your fingertips, you'll always know where your employees excel and where they need work. Visit us online now to learn more about how Ninja Bookings can help your business.
