As the weather warms in Portland, so do the streets with visitors, vacationers, and even locals finally emerging from their winter shells. If you own or manage a bar or restaurant in the Portland area, your business will likely experience a surge in customers over the coming months. This is the perfect time to prepare accordingly by getting organized, ensuring your staff are properly trained and cleaning or fixing any cooking equipment that may have been neglected the past few months. Bare Metal Standard of Portland recommends checking on these areas of your restaurant in order to gear up for summer.
Equipment Tune-Up
Make sure all cooking appliances and fire safety devices are in good condition. If necessary, have a professional come in to periodically inspect the essential machinery you use to run your business. This preventative measure will not only assure a smooth transition to the busy summer months, but will also ensure a higher rate of efficiency for your business. Efficient machinery means higher quality and faster production!
Cleanliness is Obvious
No one likes dining in a dirty restaurant, and this includes your kitchen. The cleanliness of your restaurant is a reflection of the food service you provide, and ultimately your brand. You should be doing a thorough cleaning of all aspects of the dining room weekly, but did you know that you should also be getting your kitchen equipment cleaned professionally on a seasonal basis? Your kitchen exhaust system and vent hood collect massive amounts of grease over time, staining your machinery and creating a dangerous fire hazard. If you haven’t had your kitchen exhaust system cleaned in quite some time, then you could potentially fail your next surprise inspection and have your restaurant shut down right before the most profitable time of the year for Portland restaurants. Solid fuel cooking operations are inspected monthly, high-volume cooking operations (i.e., 24-hour cooking, charbroiling, or wok cooking) are inspected quarterly, and moderate-volume cooking operations are inspected semi-annually.
Bare Metal Standard of Portland can clean your kitchen exhaust system and vent hoods to 95% bare metal, greatly decreasing your risk of a grease fire as well as boosting the cleanliness of your kitchen. Don’t fail your next inspection due to negligence, let us help keep you on track with custom scheduling software that reminds you when your next clean is due. We guarantee you’ll pass your next inspection with flying colors since our proprietary methods go above and beyond the current fire safety code standards. Plus, we’re a local Portland company that holds a higher standard of clean than our competitors.
Go Over Basic Fire Safety Procedures
It can get hot in Portland over the summer, increasing the risk of fire and ruffling some feathers in the kitchen as well when it gets busy. Make sure your staff is reminded of where to find the closest fire extinguisher as well as the proper technique to use one. Remind them of the very real dangers of grease fires, in particular that throwing water on a grease fire makes it splatter and spread, resulting in an eruption and even larger fire. Make sure all fire safety equipment is in working order so that when the time comes, it’s not too late. Check out our restaurant fire safety checklist in our blog for ideas on what to go over with your staff!