The pandemic changed the way we look at sanitation in crowded areas.
A lot of restaurants changed their protocols in order to keep people safe with things like hand sanitizing stations and digital menus.
As the world reopens and guests slip back into their usual way of dining, as a restaurant owner, you still have a responsibility to keep your guests safe. Here is how to do it.
Avoid Cross-Contamination
In your kitchen, have a special place for the preparation of certain foods. Raw meats can contain bacteria, and if you use the same surface to cut vegetables or salads that go out raw, you can potentially poison your customers.
Have color coded cutting boards and plenty of space in work stations to keep foods away from each other.
Clean Floors Before and After Service
You can’t avoid a spill, and there are going to be times when you are going to have to pull out a mop and do some cleaning. That’s going to happen; however, when it comes to regular cleaning do it before or after service.
Avoid wet floors at all costs. A customer can slip and fall, and it only takes one lawsuit to close your business. Make sure that everywhere your customers walk is dry and well-maintained.
Constantly Clean Your Bathrooms
Keep the floors dry and keep the soap filled. Bathrooms are a hotspot for falls and injuries. Bathrooms are also a place where a lot of germs can live and potentially get a whole room of people sick.
Throughout service, dry floors and surfaces, wipe down faucets and handles, and make sure hand dryers work or there are plenty of paper towels.
Do a check for mold. Mold spores can make any person severely sick. Contact mold remediation experts to check around your floor drains and sink drains for mold in both customer bathrooms, in kitchens, around ice machines, behind the bar, and in employee bathrooms.
How clean your bathroom is directly letting customers know how clean the entire restaurant is.
Inspect Your Fire Alarms
There is a constant fire going in the restaurant at all times. Because of that, your fire alarms need to be inspected to make sure they work.
Running a test in off hours with your local fire department is ideal to ensure that everyone is staying safe. Make sure that smoke alarms are operational and fire extinguishers are easily accessed and pass inspection.
It is a rule of thumb to change the batteries in your smoke alarm every six months, so picking a day like the first days of spring and fall is a good way to ensure the batteries are always fresh and always working.
Change Air Filters
As the seasons change and you switch between heat and air conditioning, the filters in your dining room can collect mites, dust, and spores.
Every three months, change these filters so that the air coming into the dining room and to your customers is always clean and free of pathogens.