Restaurant closing checklist

Front of house

• Clear and clean all tables and chairs.
• Restock menus, napkins and condiments.
• Sweep and mop floors.
• Clean and restock restrooms.

Kitchen and bar

• Turn off and clean grills, fryers and ovens.
• Label, date and store food properly.
• Record closing temperatures of refrigerators.
• Clean prep surfaces and sanitize them.
• Take out trash and recycling.

Cash and security

• Close and balance the POS.
• Prepare the deposit and secure the cash.
• Turn off equipment, lights and music.
• Lock doors and set the alarm.

Tips for using this template well

1. Give each task an owner.
2. Make time for closing in the schedule.
3. Spot-check the next morning.
4. Update the list after any incident.

Food safety at close

Cold food should be held at 41 degrees Fahrenheit or below and hot food at 135 degrees or above, according to the FDA Food Code, which most states follow in some form. Record the walk-in temperature at close, label and date prepared items, and discard anything left out too long. Sanitizer strength depends on the product, so follow the label and test with strips.

Lock-up and cash

Finish with the order that protects the business: stove and fryer off, gas valves closed where your equipment requires it, trash out, cash counted with a witness, doors locked, alarm set. Sign the sheet with the time. If the sheet regularly shows a close taking an hour after the last guest, schedule it as paid time.

How it shows up in a schedule

Assign each closing task to a named person, with a time. Stagger leaving: the dishwasher at 10:30, the line at 11, the manager at 11:30. Staggering avoids paying everyone for the slowest task.

Common mistakes

• Skipping temperature checks.
• No labels or dates.
• Leaving cash unwatched.
• Letting one person do everything.

Cooling food before it goes in the walk-in

Closing is when large batches of soup, rice and sauces are cooled for the next day. The FDA Food Code (section 3-501.14) requires cooked food to drop from 135°F to 70°F within 2 hours and from 70°F to 41°F within a total of 6 hours. A deep stock pot left in the walk-in will not make it. Split batches into shallow pans, use ice baths or ice wands, and log the temperature with the time at each step. Most state health codes follow these numbers or close versions of them.

Sanitizer and hood checks

• Test sanitizer buckets and the dish machine with test strips at close. The Food Code sets ranges by type, such as 50 to 100 ppm for chlorine in many uses; quaternary ammonium products follow their label.
• Empty and clean grease traps and fryer filters on your set schedule.
• Check when the hood was last professionally cleaned. Fire code standard NFPA 96 sets frequencies by cooking volume, from monthly for solid-fuel cooking to quarterly for high-volume operations such as 24-hour or charbroiling kitchens.

Timing the close by role

Write the targets on the checklist. If the line regularly finishes at 11:30, the tasks or the staffing need to change, not the time sheet.

Paid time and the last punch

Closing tasks are work, so employees must be on the clock while doing them. Clocking people out and then asking them to “just finish the floor” is off-the-clock work that the Fair Labor Standards Act does not allow. Set the closer’s clock-out as the last step on the list, after the manager signs. EZTime can send a forgot-to-clock-out alert if a closer leaves without punching out.

Restaurant closing checklist: common questions

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