Every restaurant owns or leases equipment that is worth quite a bit of money. Taking care of your commercial equipment not only saves you money by extending the life of the equipment, but can also save you time when cleaning. Although you should have a manual that tells you exactly how to clean, it is smart to also create your own daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly maintenance schedule to ensure that your equipment stays in tip top shape. Depending on what kind of equipment you have, you will want to tailor your list to be specific to those appliances. Here is a general list to help give you an idea of what you should be doing to keep your items clean and running smoothly.
Daily
– Check temperature settings on refrigerator, ice machine and walk-in cooler
– Wipe down refrigerator shelves and interior
– Clean flat top griddle
– Empty and clean grease trap or waste drawer
– Check drain pipes on ice machine and refrigeration equipment
– Wipe down fryer exterior
– Clean fryer baskets
– Filter the oil
Weekly
– Replace oil in fryers
– Clean ice machine exterior
– Inspect walk-in cooler/freezer door sweeps for tears
– Wipe down walk-in cooler/freezer shelves and interior
Monthly
– Inspect and calibrate thermostat on griddle
– Clean refrigerator condenser and evaporator coils
– Clean refrigerator fan blades
– Remove fryer from wall and clean all around the area
– Inspect pilot light(s)
– Clean air vents
– Inspect and clean air intake vent on convection oven
– Clean soda dispenser condenser
– Clean and sanitize bin and ice chute
This is a general guideline that you can use as a starting point. You will want to keep in mind your specific equipment and what the manual for each one says. Staying on top of cleaning and setting up a specific schedule will help you to not forget the daily maintenance, that if not performed regularly, can pile up and lead to problems or lead to an unnecessary amount of time spent cleaning. Creating a list and delegating tasks will help this process and ensure you get the most out of your investment.
