Having a popular restaurant which people love for its great location, tasty dishes and polite staff is a great feeling.
However, you must not let complacency destroy your hard work. There are many other things to consider while running a successful restaurant and cleanliness is probably the most important of them all.
A research conducted by the US Center for Disease Control showed that more than fifty percent of all illnesses connected with food in the US originate in restaurants, delis, schools or other public institutions which serve food.
There is more than one reason for this. While some owners are simply irresponsible, others make sure cleaning is performed, but fall into the trap of giving in to the routine. Not paying enough attention to cleaning can result in problems which can hurt your reputation and ultimately cost you customers.
Even if you make sure your staff uses all the necessary cleaning equipment and you manage to control the quality of their cleaning, there is a problem which can affect the general level of hygiene in your establishment. Namely, there are certain places which are ignored during cleaning just because we are not aware of how susceptible they are to harboring harmful germs.
Top 5 Places To Find Hidden Germs
The Door Mats
Did you know that 500 people entering your restaurant over 40 days bring in, on an average, 24 pound (11 kilograms) of dirt? As an owner of an eatery this would be particularly worrisome. Chances are you have mats to reduce the entry of dust and grime.
- But are they doing their job?
- How effective are they?
Rental lift-and-lay mats such as that from Alsco are proven to be better than both supermarket or hardware store mats to get more out the mats.
The Sneeze Guard
Does your restaurant have buffets or salad or ice-cream bars or any other form of open food counters? Chances are you have a sneeze guard to cover it and shield it from contamination. However, the very contamination that you are shielding the food from collects on the sneeze guard itself.
So it is important that the guard is cleaned hourly whether is looks dirty or not. Alsco’s tea towels with some glass cleaning liquid can be used for this purpose.
The Door Handles
Handles on doors are the only thing we need to touch after we use the toilet and before we get to the sink to wash our hands. This is why they are usually brimming with bacteria and other germs.
This is why cleaning of door handles needs to be performed as frequently as possible and at least once every two hours.
The Dispensers In Your Washrooms
These are regularly touched by unwashed hands and are a hotbed of germs and disease which could spread to other parts of your washroom and then to the restaurant in no time.
Installing automatic no-touch dispensers is a healthier alternative. Advanced technology ensures these dispensers activate when you need them to without having to touch them thus avoiding cross-contamination. As an added advantage, they dispense only the required amount of soap making them more economical too.
The Telephone
All restaurants have phones in various locations. These could be the front desk, the bar or in the kitchen.
- Are these being cleaned regularly?
- And more importantly, are they being cleaned well enough?
Phones are constantly being touched by different people. It is rare and almost unheard of that a person washes their hands before touching the phone. And people will almost always go back to their work, without washing their hands, after using the phone. So, your friendly phone has just become a transmitter of your friend Ms Germs.
This is particularly dangerous in areas where food is being handled. There it is important that not only are the phones cleaned regularly, but also that they should be cleaned properly as well.
Using Alsco’s soft kitchen wipes to periodically clean is one way to ensure that your phones do not become the ticking time bomb that they could well become. These are laundered to the highest standards of the food industry. Fold these well and use a fresh part each time.
Now that you know which places you might have missed until now, you will be able to raise hygienic standards of your establishment to another level.
If you need more help with keeping your restaurant clean or you need expert advice on how to make the cleaning process more practical, give Alsco experts a call. People from Alsco are ready to assist you in finding the best solution for all your cleaning needs.
Remember, Alsco Is Just A Phone Call Away!
Photo courtesy of Flickr Images by Sarah_Ackerman
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