Donewell / Restaurants / Kitchen deep clean checklist

Kitchen deep clean checklist

A kitchen deep clean checklist is the weekly work a nightly close never has time to reach. It has 17 items in 9 sections — hoods, behind the line, fryers and ovens, reach-ins, walk-in, drains and traps, ice machine, dry storage and notes. Of those, four ask for a photo and two are notes; the rest are a tick. The sections are the places that get skipped in order of how expensive skipping them is.

Tick it here — nothing is saved anywhere but this browser — or copy it into Donewell and have your staff sign each item off on their phone.

What should be on a weekly kitchen deep clean list?

The things you have to move something to reach. Hood filters through the dish machine and the canopy degreased; the line pulled out and the floor underneath degreased; fryers boiled out and the oil dated; oven interiors; reach-in gaskets and condenser coils; the walk-in floor and fan guards; floor drains and the grease trap; the ice bin; dry storage shelves and pest traps. Four of them are photographed because "behind the line" is not a place an owner can check from a phone.

How long does a kitchen deep clean take?

Two to three hours for two people on a closed day, and it stays at two to three hours only if it is genuinely weekly. Run it monthly instead and the hood canopy alone becomes a half day, the condenser coils cost you a compressor, and the grease trap becomes a plumber. The economics of this list are entirely in the interval.

Why put the deep clean on a schedule?

Because it is the first thing that gets dropped on a busy week and the last thing anybody notices was dropped. Nothing about a kitchen looks different the week the coils were skipped. Two of the items here are notes on purpose — the oil change with its date and fryer, and anything needing repair — so the week produces a record that a nightly close does not.

Last updated 17 September 2026