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Learn MoreAt times, can your restaurant's kitchen get a bit too chaotic?
If so, something as simple as a kitchen checklist can solve the problem.
Anyone outside of the industry may be surprised to hear how much work goes into prepping and closing the kitchen every day.
Ingredients need to be readied in the morning, then stored at the end of the day. Ovens and refrigerators need to be set at precise temperatures for consistency. Surfaces and supplies need to be cleaned constantly for the safety of your guests and your team.
So much more goes into kitchen opening and closing than people realize. Restaurant kitchen opening checklists and kitchen closing checklists are the crux of back-of-house organization.
As a restaurateur, it's your job to make these duties as clear, simple, and repeatable as possible for your team so they can focus their efforts on making delicious food for your guests, which remains the most important factor in choosing a restaurant in 2017.
You may be of the opinion that after years of experience in the industry, a kitchen checklist might not be necessary for you. Here are five reasons why a kitchen checklist is necessary.
Convinced? Perfect. Let's move on to setting up your kitchen opening checklist and kitchen closing checklist.
The purpose of a kitchen opening checklist is for the kitchen crew to get all their ducks in a row. In the morning, there's usually a new supply of food delivered that needs to be stored, as well as food that needs to be taken out of storage to prep for the day.
With so many moving pieces, it's almost inevitable for something to slip through the cracks. Here's how to develop a system to keep that from happening.
Sit down with your back-of-house staff and have them tell you everything they do in the morning. Talk to your connections in the industry and have them explain what they do to open their kitchen. Observe your kitchen crew prepping the back of house and take note of their activities.
Some common kitchen opening tasks include:
Once you've everything that needs to be done, you'll have all the contents for your checklist. But where do you put them?
Whether your kitchen is opened by one dedicated chef or an assembly of professionals, it's beneficial to break up your kitchen checklist by section and task.
For example, if you're trying to expedite the kitchen prep process with your checklist, you probably wouldn't put "marinate the chicken" in between "turn on the ovens and set to 450º" and "organize all morning deliveries."
Instead, you'd probably put it in a section of the checklist next to other food prep-related items.
Go through the list of tasks and find common threads between line items. Bucket them together by priority, task relatedness, proximity, etc.
Once you have all of your to-do items organized, list them on an Excel sheet and use that as your printable kitchen opening checklist. Save a copy for your records to re-print every week and adjust when procedures are changed.
Make sure you leave space at the bottom for comments and a signature by whomever reviewed the tasks so errors and notes can be promptly followed up on.
The process for setting up the kitchen closing checklist is very similar to the process for the opening checklist.
However, unlike the opening checklist, the closing checklist has a larger emphasis safety and health.
Because food is stored overnight and the premise is left unattended, simple missteps could lead to big problems. Leaving an oven or stove on or not shutting a refrigerator door tightly could damage your building or spoil your food.
Take extra precaution in setting up this list to ensure mini (or major) crises don't happen.
Observe your back-of-house crew as they close for the night. Take note of any loose ends you want to tie up with the kitchen closing checklist.
Common kitchen closing checklist tasks include:
Like your opening checklist, it's helpful to structure your kitchen closing checklists by common threads. Because there are more tasks to tackle at closing than opening, this organization is crucial.
Cleaning, safety, and general are all categories you can organize your closing tasks into.
Once everything is good to go, list the tasks on an Excel sheet and use that as your printable kitchen closing checklist. As before, leave space for comments and a signature by whomever reviewed the tasks so errors and notes can be followed up on.
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