Now that restaurants are allowed to operate again, many people are looking forward to eating out in their favourite restaurants with their family and friends. But this time around, there are many more restrictions that restaurants have to implement to stay afloat and safe. One of them is thoroughly sanitizing your establishment, more so than before.

Keeping your restaurant clean was always a requirement by the health department. But with the pandemic at hand, you can’t get away with having things just appearing clean. Besides the prominent places to clean, such as washrooms, tabletops, and floors, here are four often most neglected areas that need to be cleaned:

Ice Compartments 

Ice machines come in handy for storing cubes of ice for drinks on those hot summer days. But just because the machine is all water doesn’t mean that it cleans itself. Any piece of equipment that hasn’t been touched in a while needs to be inspected, as you might just find some cleanliness issues inside. Simply follow the cleaning instructions that manufacturers often leave in the instruction manual to keep the compartments clean.

The Restaurant Refrigerator 

The place where you store food must always be one of the cleanest places in a restaurant. Germs and bacteria can easily cling to the food that you serve customers every day, which is why you must make it a habit to clean the storage places four to five times a week. Make sure the shelves and surfaces are also clean enough for new ingredients to store. If you serve all types of food, be sure to separate the meats from the fresh produce to avoid cross-contamination.

Fridges for cakes and pastry desserts should also have their fair share of cleaning. Ensure that there aren’t any residues or crumbs that fall to the bottom of the fridge.

Tabletop Shakers

Salt, pepper, and condiment bottles are often ignored when employees wipe down the tabletop. People use these every time they dine in, so that means they come into a lot of contact with different people.

For salt and pepper shakers, you can take the current fillings, transform them into another container and put the shakers in the dishwasher––this is best done once a week. 

Condiment bottles like those from ketchup can get crusty up top, which is quite nasty. Make sure that the part is scraped regularly so that it appears appetizing to use. Just like the shakers, the bottles need to be washed as well. In doing so, you can transfer the condiment from one container to another and refill it back in once it’s been washed.

Booster Seats 

High chairs are made special for the adorable babies that families bring along to a nice lunch or dinner. Since children use these seats the most, they have to be cleaned and sanitized. But surprisingly, they are one of the filthiest things in a restaurant.

To clean a booster seat, you first need to consider the materials they’re made out of. Plastic and metal seats are often easy to clean with a bit of cleaning fluid and water. On the other hand, wood seats need a diluted solution of vinegar or bleach to be cleaned regularly. But if the seat has fabric, you will want to skip the bleach, as it can damage the fabric.

Conclusion

Keeping your restaurant clean, especially amid the ongoing pandemic, is not only just a matter of staying in business. Doing so ensures that all the customers who come and go to your establishment are safe. Although you may take extra hours to clean every corner, there are no shortcuts to ensuring safety!

If you don’t have the staffing to sanitize your restaurant thoroughly, consider hiring cleaning services that offer restaurant cleaning in Toronto. Diamond Cleaning Services provides expert commercial and janitorial services to businesses of all sizes, so get in touch with us today to book our services!