Donewell / Restaurants / Weekly manager walkthrough checklist

Weekly manager walkthrough checklist

A weekly manager walkthrough is a look at the building itself rather than at the shift running inside it. It has 15 items in 6 sections — exterior, dining room, kitchen, storage, staff and notes. Of those, three ask for a photo and two are notes; the rest are a tick. It is deliberately short, because a walkthrough that takes an hour turns into a walkthrough that happens quarterly.

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 a manager check every week?

The things that only get noticed when they fail: exterior lights and signage, the dumpster area, chairs and tables in real repair, restroom fixtures, fire extinguishers charged and tagged, the fire suppression tag still current, the first aid kit, stock rotation, chemical labels, posted schedules and current certifications. None of it is urgent on the day you look. All of it is urgent on the day it is found by somebody else.

How long does a weekly walkthrough take?

Twenty minutes if you walk it in the order written: outside first, then the dining room, then the kitchen, then storage, then the office wall where the schedules and certifications live. The slow part is the fire equipment, because reading a suppression tag properly means finding the date on it, which is why that item asks for a photograph rather than a tick.

Who should do the walkthrough?

A manager who is not working the floor that hour, on the same day each week. Two of the items are notes — equipment needing repair, and anything for the owner — and those two are the reason the walkthrough exists. A tick list with no place to write "the walk-in door is dragging again" produces a clean sheet and a broken door.

Last updated 17 September 2026