When a cleaning company hands you a quote or a health inspector writes up your kitchen, the words fly fast: degrease, sanitize, FOG, baffle filter, quat. These are the restaurant cleaning terms every owner runs into, and each one has a plain meaning in everyday language, so you can follow the conversation and know exactly what you’re paying for.
You don’t need to memorize any of it. Skim to the term you heard, get the one line version, and move on. The terms fall into four buckets: the cleaning basics, the grease words, the floor words, and the compliance words.
The Cleaning Basics
These are the words you’ll hear on almost every quote and every inspection.
Clean, sanitize, and disinfect are three different things, and mixing them up is the single most common mistake owners make. Cleaning removes visible dirt, grease, and food with soap and scrubbing. Sanitizing lowers germs on an already clean surface to a safe level, which is the food safety standard for anything that touches food. Disinfecting kills a broader range of germs and is stronger than sanitizing. You can’t sanitize a dirty surface, the food debris blocks the sanitizer, so cleaning always comes first.
Sanitizer is the chemical (or hot water) that does the sanitizing step. In restaurants it’s almost always one of two chemicals below.
Quat is short for quaternary ammonium, the most common food service sanitizer. It’s mixed to about 200 to 400 parts per million, is gentle on surfaces, and leaves a light residue that keeps working briefly as it dries. It needs a longer contact time than bleach.
Chlorine sanitizer is diluted bleach, mixed to about 50 to 100 parts per million for wiping cloths and dishwashing. It works fast and cheap but weakens quickly in hot or dirty water, so it’s got to be mixed fresh and tested.
Contact time (also called dwell time or kill time) is how long a sanitizer or cleaner must sit wet on the surface to actually work. Wipe it off too soon and the chemical never did its job. That’s why a pro sprays, waits, then wipes, instead of spray and wipe in one motion.
Dilution ratio is how much water you mix with a concentrated chemical, like 1 ounce per gallon. Too weak and it doesn’t work; too strong wastes money and can damage surfaces or leave residue. The right ratio is on the label.
Cross contamination is spreading germs from one surface to another, usually by a dirty rag, a cutting board, or gloves. A big part of a cleaning routine is stopping it, using separate cloths and color coded tools for different zones.
SDS (safety data sheet, once called an MSDS) is the document that comes with every cleaning chemical, listing its hazards, how to use it safely, and what to do if someone gets it in their eyes. Inspectors expect these on file.
The Grease Words
Grease is where most of the money and the fire risk sit, so it’s worth knowing these cold.
Degrease means removing built up grease, not just wiping a surface. Grease bakes onto hoods, walls, and the sides of equipment and needs a dedicated degreaser and real scrubbing to lift. If you want the full picture, how professionals degrease a commercial kitchen walks through the method.
FOG stands for fats, oils, and grease, the stuff that pours down your drains as a warm liquid and hardens into a clog as it cools. Most local sewer rules exist to keep FOG out of the public system, which is why the next term matters.
Grease trap (also called a grease interceptor) is the box, usually under a sink or in the floor, that catches FOG before it reaches the sewer. It has to be pumped out on a schedule by a licensed hauler, which is a separate trade from your cleaning company. The line between the two is covered in grease trap service and what restaurant cleaners handle.
Baffle filter is the angled metal filter that sits in the exhaust hood over your cook line and catches airborne grease. It needs regular cleaning, usually a soak in degreaser, and it’s different from the ductwork above it. See how to clean restaurant hood filters for where that job starts and stops.
Hood and exhaust cleaning is the deep cleaning of the entire grease exhaust system, the hood, filters, ducts, and rooftop fan. Full system cleaning is a certified specialty (the standard is called NFPA 96) and a fire safety requirement, not part of everyday kitchen cleaning.
The Floor Words
If you’ve got hard tile floors, these come up every time someone talks about finish.
Strip and wax is stripping the old worn floor finish down to bare tile, then laying fresh coats of finish (still called wax) to protect and shine the floor. It’s done every 6 to 12 months on busy resilient tile floors.
Scrub and recoat is the lighter version: scrubbing off the top layer of finish and adding a fresh coat or two, without stripping to bare tile. It buys time between full strips.
Burnishing (or buffing) is a high speed polish that brings back the shine on finish that’s already down. It’s the quick refresh between recoats. The differences are laid out in floor stripping versus waxing versus buffing.
Quarry tile is the dense, reddish brown tile most commercial kitchens use for their floors. It’sn’t waxed, because wax on a greasy wet floor is a slip hazard. It gets degreased and its grout gets sealed instead.
Auto scrubber is the walk behind or ride on machine that scrubs and dries a hard floor in one pass, used on larger floors instead of a mop and bucket.
The Compliance Words
These are the ones that show up when an inspector’s in the building.
Health inspection is the routine visit from your local health department that scores your kitchen against the food code. Some findings are minor; others are serious.
Critical violation (some areas call it a priority violation) is a finding that directly puts food safety at risk, like pests, unsafe temperatures, or no sanitizer. These are the ones that can shut you down, and they’re what a strong cleaning routine is built to prevent.
HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control points) is the food safety system that identifies where contamination can happen and builds in checks to prevent it. Cleaning and sanitation are a core part of any HACCP plan.
Food contact surface is any surface food touches: cutting boards, prep tables, slicer blades, the inside of an ice machine. These have the strictest cleaning and sanitizing rules, because whatever is on them ends up in the food.
Cleaning log is the written or digital record showing what got cleaned and when. Inspectors ask for it because it proves your cleaning is a system, not a scramble the night before.
Why These Restaurant Cleaning Terms Matter
You don’t need to become an expert. You just need enough of the vocabulary that nobody can wave a term past you. When a cleaning company says they’ll degrease the hood and soak the baffle filters but the exhaust system is out of scope, you now know that’s honest, not a dodge. When an inspector marks a critical violation for a dirty food contact surface, you know exactly what they mean and how to fix it.
The next time you read a cleaning quote or a health report, keep this page open and you’ll be able to check every word against it. A clear quote you fully understand is the sign of a company worth hiring. If a term ever sounds like it’s hiding something, ask, and a good cleaner will explain it in the same plain language used here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between cleaning and sanitizing in a restaurant?
Cleaning removes visible dirt, grease, and food with soap and scrubbing. Sanitizing is a separate step that lowers germs on an already clean surface to a safe level, usually with a chemical sanitizer or hot water. You have to clean first, because sanitizer can’t work through food debris. Both are required on food contact surfaces.
What does FOG mean in a restaurant?
FOG stands for fats, oils, and grease. It pours down the drain as a warm liquid and hardens into a clog as it cools, which is why restaurants use a grease trap to catch it before it reaches the sewer. Most local sewer rules are written specifically to keep FOG out of the public system.
What is a baffle filter?
A baffle filter is the angled metal grease filter that sits in the exhaust hood above your cook line. It catches airborne grease from cooking and needs regular cleaning, usually a soak in degreaser. It’s separate from the ductwork above it, and the full exhaust system is a certified cleaning job of its own.
What is quat in cleaning?
Quat is short for quaternary ammonium, the most common sanitizer in food service. It’s mixed to roughly 200 to 400 parts per million, is gentle on surfaces, and leaves a light residue that keeps working as it dries. It needs a slightly longer contact time than a bleach based sanitizer.
What is the difference between strip and wax and scrub and recoat?
Strip and wax removes all the old floor finish down to bare tile and rebuilds it with fresh coats, done every 6 to 12 months on busy floors. Scrub and recoat only takes off the top layer and adds a coat or two, which is faster and cheaper and buys time between full strips. Both apply to resilient tile floors, not kitchen quarry tile.
What is a critical violation on a health inspection?
A critical violation, sometimes called a priority violation, is a finding that directly threatens food safety, such as pests, unsafe food temperatures, or no working sanitizer. These carry the most weight on an inspection and can lead to a shutdown if not corrected. A consistent cleaning and sanitizing routine is what prevents most of them.