Restaurants
Restaurant Cleaning Services
Grease does not stay where it was made. It goes up the tiles, along the underside of the shelf, into the grout and down the drain. A restaurant is cleaned after close, cold, with a degreaser and mechanical action — not with a mop and a spray bottle at the end of a shift.
- Kitchen and front of house cleaned as separate zones
- Floors degreased and scrubbed, not mopped
- Behind and under the line, on a scheduled rotation
- We quote after close, when the kitchen is at its worst
What is actually behind the quote
Every line here is documented. Ask, and the paperwork is in your inbox before the first shift rather than after you chase it.
- $20m public liability
- Certificate of currency on request
- Police-checked cleaners
- WWCC where children are on site
- No lock-in contract
- Fixed written price within 24 hours
What do restaurant cleaning services actually cover?
Restaurant cleaning covers two areas that are cleaned with different methods and never share equipment: the kitchen and the front of house. In the kitchen that means the line, benches, the tiled walls behind cooking equipment, the accessible face of the extraction canopy, splashbacks, the floor and its grout, floor wastes and drain covers, and the areas behind and under fixed equipment on a rotation. Front of house means tables, chair legs, banquettes, the bar, service stations, glass, the entry and the bathrooms.
Clean Best cleans restaurants after close, once the cooking equipment is cold. Degreaser does not work on a hot surface, and a wet floor beside a fryer during service is a hazard rather than a clean.
Clean Best does not clean ducted kitchen exhaust systems, extraction fans or roof units, and does not service grease traps. Those are separate specialist trades. Clean Best cleans the accessible canopy face and, on request, the removable filters, and scopes around the rest rather than quoting for it.
- A scope per industryWritten for your venue type, not copied from the last client
- $20m public liabilityCertificate of currency before the first shift
- Sydney and NSW onlyOne depot at Seven Hills. We do not work interstate.
- Written quote in 24 hoursFixed price, no lock-in contract
The detail
What a kitchen does to a cleaning scope written for an office
Restaurant cleaning services fail in a very particular way, and it is almost never dramatic. The venue does not become filthy. It becomes slightly, permanently tacky. The dining room floor has a sheen. The grout goes grey and stays grey. There is a smell in the morning that was not there a year ago and that nobody can locate. Every one of those is the same problem, and the problem is that grease is being moved rather than removed.
Grease travels, and it travels further than the cleaner thinks
Aerosolised cooking fat does not politely settle on the surfaces directly under it. It goes up the tiled wall well above the equipment. It coats the underside of the pass shelf, which nobody ever looks at. It lands on the ceiling above the fryer. It gets walked out of the kitchen on shoe soles and pressed into the dining room floor. And it goes into every low point of the kitchen floor — which is to say, into the grout lines, where a mop cannot reach it and where it will stay.
A cleaning scope written for an office does not contain the words “full height”, “underside” or “degrease”. It contains “wipe surfaces”. That is the whole gap.
The floor is not a mopping job
This is the single most common thing we find when we take over a restaurant from a general cleaner. The kitchen floor is being mopped. A flat mop and a bucket of warm water on a quarry-tile or safety-vinyl floor with service grease on it will lift a little and redistribute a lot, pressing it firmly into the grout in the process. Do that five nights a week for a year and you have a floor that is grey, faintly slick, and functionally impossible to bring back without a machine.
What actually works is unglamorous: a degreaser, left on the floor for the contact time printed on its own label, then mechanical action — a deck brush, or a rotary on the bigger floors — then extraction or a proper rinse. It takes longer. It is the difference between a floor that looks the same in year three and one that does not.
Contact time is where most sanitising quietly stops working
The most widespread error in hospitality cleaning, and we find it in nearly every venue we take over, is a sanitiser being sprayed onto a bench and wiped off within about three seconds. The surface looks clean. Chemically, almost nothing has happened, because the product needed to sit there and was not allowed to. It is not laziness — nobody has ever told the cleaner otherwise.
Our cleaners are inducted on the labels of the products they carry. Clean first, apply, leave it for the time the manufacturer says, then wipe. On a busy line that discipline is worth more than any amount of extra scrubbing.
Behind the line, and the cool room
The floor behind and under fixed equipment is where a kitchen’s real condition lives. It is also the one place that a nightly clean, honestly scoped, cannot reach — pulling a cooking bank out is not a nightly job. So we schedule it: a rotation, with a frequency agreed at the walkthrough, written into the scope with a date rather than an intention. The same goes for cool room walls and shelving, the dry store, and the hood filters.
Then there is the deep clean, which belongs on a shutdown day and nowhere else. Full grout scrub, everything pulled out, cool room emptied and done properly, front of house detailed. It cannot be forced into the ninety minutes after a Saturday service, and any contractor who tells you it can is telling you what you want to hear.
What we will not do, and will say so
We do not clean ducted exhaust, extraction fans or roof units. We do not service grease traps. Both are specialist licensed trades with their own equipment and their own access requirements, and a cleaning company that takes them on anyway is one that will eventually do one of them badly. We scope around them, we tell you they are separate, and we will tell you when the state of one of them is making the rest of the kitchen a losing battle.
Call 1300 494 983 and we will come and look at the kitchen after close. If your current cleaner is doing the floor properly, we will tell you that too.
The difference
What a general cleaner gets wrong in a restaurant
Four things we find on almost every takeover. None of them are visible on the night. All of them are visible in year two.
One mop and one bucket for the whole venue
Service grease gets carried out of the kitchen and laid down across the dining room floor. The dining room then feels faintly tacky underfoot, nobody can say why, and the fix everyone reaches for is more mopping — which spreads it further.
What we do instead: Kitchen and front of house are cleaned as separate zones with their own mops, buckets and cloths, colour-coded so a cleaner cannot cross them by accident. The kitchen floor is degreased and scrubbed, not mopped.
Wiping the wall behind the line at eye height and stopping there
Grease travels further than anyone expects — up the tiles well above the equipment, along the underside of shelving, and onto the ceiling above a fryer. Cleaning only the part you can see at standing height leaves a ring of build-up above it that eventually starts to drip.
What we do instead: The tiled wall behind cooking equipment is degreased to full height, and the underside of the pass shelf and any overhead shelving is on the rotation rather than the wish list.
Never moving the equipment
The floor under and behind the line is where everything ends up, and it is the one place a general clean never reaches. Six months of it becomes a genuine problem — and it is exactly where anyone looking closely at your kitchen will look.
What we do instead: Behind and beneath fixed equipment is a scheduled rotation item, with the frequency agreed at the walkthrough and written into the scope so it happens on a date rather than when someone remembers.
Sanitiser sprayed on and wiped straight off
A disinfectant that needs contact time to do anything is being applied and removed inside three seconds. The surface looks clean and has been chemically pointless. This is the most common thing we find on takeover, in every hospitality venue, without exception.
What we do instead: Surfaces are cleaned first, then the product is applied and left for the contact time printed on its own label before it is wiped. Our cleaners are inducted on the labels of the products they carry.
What's included
What we clean in your restaurant
A typical nightly scope for a working kitchen and dining room. Yours is written from the walkthrough — this is the shape it usually takes.
- Degrease and scrub the kitchen floor with mechanical action, not a mop pass
- Clean and disinfect the line, benches, prep surfaces and splashbacks, at label contact time
- Degrease tiled walls behind cooking equipment to full height, not just at eye level
- Wipe the accessible face of the extraction canopy and the underside of the pass shelf
- Clean floor wastes, drain covers and the channel around them
- Clean and sanitise sinks, taps, hand-wash basins and the areas around them
- Empty all waste and recycling to the bin area; clean the bin area on the agreed frequency
- Reset front of house: tables, chair legs and bases, banquettes, booth seams
- Clean the bar, service stations, glass shelving and the back-bar surfaces
- Mop and detail the dining room floor with equipment that has never been in the kitchen
- Clean entry glass, door handles, menus and the host stand
- Sanitise customer bathrooms: pans, basins, mirrors, partitions; restock consumables
- Rotation: behind and under fixed equipment, cool room walls and shelving, dry store
- Secure the venue on exit: lights, gas isolation check, doors locked, alarm set
Ducted exhaust, extraction fans, roof units and grease trap servicing are specialist licensed trades and are not part of this scope. Periodic deep cleans and full grout programs are scheduled into a shutdown day and quoted separately.
Access
When a restaurant can actually be cleaned
The kitchen has to be cold and the floor has to be clear. That is not a preference, it is what makes the chemistry and the safety work.
| Area | When we clean it | Why that window |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen line and floor | After close, once equipment is cold | Degreaser will not work on a hot surface and there is no safe floor space during service. The clean starts when the line shuts down. |
| Front of house | After the last table leaves | Chairs come up, floors go down, and the room has to be reset for the next service before anyone leaves. |
| Cool rooms and dry store | Rotation, usually a quieter night | Stock has to be moved to do it properly, so it is scheduled rather than squeezed into a normal close. |
| Behind and under fixed equipment | Scheduled rotation, written into the scope | It needs the line pulled out, which is not a nightly job — but it is the job that decides what your kitchen actually looks like. |
| Full deep clean | A shutdown day | Grout, hood filters, cool room walls, full front of house detail. It cannot be forced into ninety minutes after a Saturday. |
Pricing
Restaurant cleaning is quoted from the line, not the floor plan
A small hard-worked kitchen with four fryers is a bigger job than a large dining room. We walk the venue after close and quote what is actually there. Fixed, in writing, within 24 hours.
Small kitchen, single service
A compact line, one cooking bank, a small dining room, and one trading service a day.
- Nightly clean after close: line, benches, floor, front of house
- Bins out, bin area kept clean, floors degreased not mopped
- One named cleaner who learns your equipment and your close
- Grout and behind-the-line on an agreed rotation
Fixed price, in writing, before anyone starts.
Full-service restaurant
A working line with multiple cooking stations, a bar, a cool room and a dining room that turns over more than once.
- Nightly, with kitchen and front of house cleaned as separate zones
- Canopy face and removable filters on the agreed cycle
- Cool room, dry store and behind-equipment rotation scheduled by date
- Named supervisor and a written monthly audit against the scope
Fixed price, in writing, before anyone starts.
Multi-venue or late trade
Groups running more than one venue, or a kitchen that does not shut down until well after midnight.
- Crew sized to the close, not to a nine-to-five roster
- Periodic deep-clean program scheduled into your shutdown days
- One supervisor, one site register and one invoice across venues
- SWMS, safety data sheets and insurance certificates supplied up front
Fixed price, in writing, before anyone starts.
Free walkthrough of your premises, then a written quote within 24 hours.
How it works
How we take over a restaurant clean
Four steps, and the second one happens after midnight if that is when your kitchen goes cold.
- 1
Ring us and describe the line
Call 1300 494 983. What the cooking bank is, what the floor is, whether there is a cool room, and what time the kitchen actually goes cold.
- 2
We walk it after close
Not at 2pm. We come out when the kitchen is in the state we would be cleaning it in — grease down, bins full, floor at its worst.
- 3
A scope written for a kitchen
Within 24 hours: one fixed figure, and a task list split into nightly, weekly rotation and periodic deep-clean work, with the exclusions named.
- 4
The same cleaner every close
Inducted on your equipment and your lock-up, starting on the agreed date, with a supervisor auditing the venue monthly against the written scope.
FAQ
Restaurant cleaning questions
What owners and head chefs ask us before they change cleaners.
What is included in restaurant cleaning services?
Clean Best cleans the kitchen and the front of house as two different rooms with two different methods. In the kitchen: the line, benches, the tiled walls behind cooking equipment, the accessible face of the canopy, splashbacks, the floor and its grout, floor waste and drain covers, and the areas behind and under equipment on a rotation. Front of house: tables, chair legs, banquettes, service stations, the bar, glass, the entry and the bathrooms. The two areas never share mops, buckets or cloths.
Do you clean the kitchen exhaust and the ductwork?
Clean Best cleans the accessible face of the canopy and, where you want it, the removable filters. We do not clean ducted exhaust systems, the fan or the roof unit. That is specialist licensed work requiring different access and different equipment, and a cleaning company that quotes for it anyway is a cleaning company that will get it wrong. We will scope around it and tell you it is a separate engagement rather than bury it in a line item.
When can you clean a restaurant?
After close, once the equipment is cold. Clean Best does not clean a working kitchen: there is no floor space, the surfaces are hot, and a wet floor beside a fryer during service is dangerous. In practice that means the clean starts after the last plate leaves and the line has been shut down. For venues that trade late, that is often well after midnight, and it is when we come out to quote it too — a kitchen at 2pm and a kitchen at 1am are not the same building.
Why does the floor in a restaurant kitchen go grey?
Because grease is being pushed into the grout rather than lifted out of it. A flat mop and a bucket of warm water will move service grease around a quarry-tile or safety-vinyl floor and press it into the low points, which is exactly where the grout is. Clean Best uses a degreaser at the contact time on its label and mechanical action — a deck brush or a rotary — rather than a mop pass, and the grout gets scrubbed on a rotation rather than only when somebody complains about it.
Do you handle food waste and the grease trap?
Clean Best removes general and recycling waste to your bin area as part of the clean, and cleans the bin area itself on the agreed frequency. We do not pump or service grease traps, and we do not handle food waste collection contracts. Those are separate trade services. We will clean around and beneath the trap and tell you plainly when the surrounding area is being made unpleasant by something only a trap service can fix.
Can you clean while the venue is closed for the day?
Yes, and for a periodic deep clean it is usually the better answer. Clean Best schedules the heavy work — full grout scrub, behind and under the line, hood filters, cool room walls and shelving, detailed front of house — into a shutdown day rather than trying to force it into the ninety minutes after a Saturday service. The regular nightly clean continues on the normal schedule; the periodic program sits alongside it and is quoted separately.
What does a restaurant clean cost?
Clean Best does not publish a price, because a rate card cannot see your kitchen. Floor area is close to meaningless here: a small, hard-worked kitchen with four fryers is a bigger job than a large dining room. We walk the venue after close, look at the line, the floor, the extraction and the front of house, and confirm one fixed figure in writing within 24 hours. There is no lock-in contract behind it.
Keep exploring
Other venues we write a kitchen-grade scope for
If you run more than one kind of premises, each gets its own scope — but one supervisor and one invoice.
Book restaurant cleaning services that treat the kitchen as a kitchen
Free walkthrough after close, fixed written quote in 24 hours, no lock-in contract. Call 1300 494 983.