A popular restaurant in Vernon Hills, Illinois, was shut down by local health department officials in July of 2003, following a salmonella outbreak that affected more than 300 people. The restaurant remained closed for two weeks after the outbreak.
Because of the closure, managers and food workers at the restaurant had to attend classes on proper food handling techniques. The restaurant had to hire a private contractor to clean and sanitize the entire building before it could reopen. Lake County, Illinois fined the restaurant’s parent corporation $32,000 for expenses tied to the outbreak. Dozens of people sued the company, which settled the cases out of court.
A year later the restaurant was closed for good.
Success in the Restaurant Business May Depend On Hygiene Just as Much As Having Good Food
If the public’s perception is that your restaurant is an unsanitary operation, it can destroy your business. If customers develop the impression that your restaurant isn’t sanitary, you’ll probably never change people’s mindsets no matter how hard you try. That’s when commercial restaurant cleaning can save a business and employees’ time.
Angelo Morinelli, a chef and restaurant owner in Boca Raton, Florida, says, “assuring good hygiene in a restaurant is a job and a half. With the quality of the employees out there today it is important to do constant training.”
According to Tom Bianco, who works as a restaurant consultant and was formerly a chef at Romano’s Macaroni Grill, maintaining good hygiene practices involves reinforcing standards with your restaurant’s staff on a daily basis. He says if you have staff meetings when the restaurant opens every day, you should be putting an emphasis on hygiene.
“When I was at Macaroni Grill, one of the things we would talk about every morning was clean aprons,” Bianco says. “We don’t want you to use an apron that you used last night, we want a nice clean apron that looks good and looks professional.”
Hire a Commercial Restaurant Cleaning Company to Take Care of the Hygiene for You
Cleanliness and hygiene (or lack of it) can determine the reputation of your restaurant. Your restaurant employees are hired for their food service and preparation, not because they’re janitors.
But what if you had people at your disposal who were specifically trained to clean thoroughly, to know how to inspect for unsanitary conditions and health hazards, and to be experts at both? Imagine if those people were trained to know the difference between various cleaning products, which to use on each surface, and how to properly (and safely) use them?
That’s where commercial restaurant cleaning services help. They understand that the establishment must not only look and smell clean, but must be free of contaminants. No stains, no funny or funky smells – just the kind of fresh scent that tells a person’s nose the place is safe.
A clean restaurant allows your staff to concentrate on producing a better product and a better service, rather than scrubbing toilets.