You’re about to hand a stranger your keys, your alarm code, and the kitchen your next health inspection depends on. The questions you ask before signing anything are what make that safe.
What to ask a restaurant cleaning company comes down to sixteen questions across six areas: proof of insurance, food service experience, exact scope, the chemicals used around your food, scheduling and access, and the records the crew leaves behind. Ask them all and most of the wrong companies eliminate themselves before price ever comes up.
One of those sixteen filters harder than the other fifteen combined. It’s not about money, and it’s not about coverage. It’s a question about what a cleaning company refuses to do in your restaurant, and the wrong answer should end the interview on the spot.
What to Ask a Restaurant Cleaning Company About Insurance and References
1. Can you send a certificate of insurance with my restaurant named as the certificate holder?
Anyone can say they’re insured. A certificate of insurance, sent directly from the company’s insurance agent with your business listed as the certificate holder, is the only version that counts. If a crew member slips on your wet tile or cracks the glass door on your reach in cooler, this document decides whose policy pays.
2. Does that coverage include workers’ compensation for everyone who enters my building?
General liability alone leaves a gap, and it’s the expensive kind. If a company staffs with uninsured subcontractors and one of them gets hurt in your kitchen at 2 a.m., the injury claim can land on you. Ask directly whether every cleaner is a covered employee, not a 1099 contractor.
3. Are you bonded?
A janitorial bond covers theft by an employee. Your cleaners work alone, at night, around your liquor stock and your office. A bonded company took that risk seriously enough to pay to insure against it.
4. Can I call two restaurant clients you serve right now?
Not two clients. Two restaurant clients, current ones. An office reference proves a crew can empty bins and vacuum carpet. It proves nothing about degreasing a cook line after close.
A company that can’t produce a single restaurant reference is asking you to be the first, at your risk. It also helps to know the red flags when hiring a restaurant cleaning service before you sit down for the first walkthrough, so you recognize the polite versions of no.
Ask What They Actually Know About Food Service
5. What restaurants do you clean now, and what kind?
A crew that handles a fast food kitchen knows grease volume. A fine dining crew knows detail work and front of house polish. Neither automatically translates to the other. You want a company whose current work looks something like your operation.
6. Who trains your crew, and on what standard?
The answer you’re listening for names something specific: the FDA Food Code, ServSafe certified staff, a written training program with food safety modules. “We show them on the job” means the standard is whatever the last kitchen tolerated.
7. Do your cleaners know the difference between cleaning and sanitizing?
This one sounds basic and catches more companies than any other knowledge question. Cleaning removes grease and soil. Sanitizing reduces bacteria to a safe level, and it only works on a surface that’s already clean.
A crew that wipes a prep table with degreaser and calls it sanitized has left your food contact surfaces looking finished and still contaminated. Health inspectors check sanitizer strength with test strips; a company serious about kitchens carries its own.
Pin Down the Scope in Writing
8. Exactly which areas and tasks are included, and how often?
“Full kitchen cleaning” is not a scope. Floors, walls behind the line, drains, restrooms, dining room, bar, entry glass: each one is either in or out, nightly or weekly or monthly. Get the task list written into the agreement, because a scope that lives in a sales conversation dissolves the first time something gets skipped.
9. What does a deep clean include, and what does one cost?
Routine service keeps a kitchen presentable. A deep clean is different work at a different price: equipment pulled away from walls, floors machine scrubbed, grease cut at height. Ask for both numbers up front, and read up on what restaurant cleaning services actually cost before the quotes arrive so you can tell a fair number from a padded one.
10. Who supplies the equipment and chemicals?
The standard answer is the cleaning company, included in the price. If they plan to use your mops and your chemicals, you’re paying twice, and the crew is working with tools nobody maintains.
Ask About Chemicals Before They Touch a Prep Surface
11. Which products will you use in food prep areas, and can I see the safety data sheets?
Every legitimate company keeps safety data sheets for its chemicals and hands them over without friction. You want food safe sanitizers on prep surfaces, not the industrial disinfectant that works fine on restroom tile and doesn’t belong near a cutting board.
12. How do you keep degreasers and disinfectants off food contact surfaces?
The answer should describe a system: color coded cloths, a wash then rinse then sanitize order on prep surfaces, chemicals stored away from anything edible. A blank look here means the rag that wiped the restroom counter might finish the night on your prep table.
Scheduling, Access, and Who Actually Shows Up
13. Can you work after close, and how do you handle keys and alarm codes?
Restaurant cleaning is night work, and a company built for it says so without hesitation. Ask who physically holds your key, how alarm codes are stored, and what the lockup protocol is when the crew leaves at 3 a.m.
14. Will the same people clean my restaurant every visit?
A consistent crew learns your kitchen: which drain clogs, which corner the fryer hides grease in, how your closing staff leaves the line. A different face every week means every night is somebody’s first night. While you’re on the subject, ask whether those faces passed background checks before they got your alarm code.
15. What happens when something goes wrong overnight?
A cooler door left open, a leaking mop sink, a cracked floor tile nobody mentions. You want an after hours contact who answers, and a damage policy the company states plainly instead of improvising when you call upset.
The Paper Trail: Records and Quality Control
16. What do you leave behind after each visit, and how do you check your own work?
Signed checklists, cleaning logs, photo reports: this is what separates a professional operation from a crew with mops. In Pennsylvania, health inspections arrive unannounced, and a documented cleaning history is the difference between telling the inspector your kitchen gets sanitized nightly and showing them. Ask how the company audits its own crews too. Scheduled supervisor spot checks beat a manager who calls once a month to ask if everything’s fine.
The One Question That Exposes a Bluff
That question, the one that filters harder than the other fifteen combined, is this: “What won’t you clean in my restaurant?”
A qualified company answers instantly, because the boundaries are part of the trade.
Hood and duct interiors belong to certified exhaust cleaning specialists working to the NFPA 96 fire standard. Fire suppression systems belong to fire protection contractors. Grease trap pumping belongs to a licensed hauler. A serious cleaning company names those lines without being prompted, and the best ones will coordinate with those specialists on your behalf.
The company that answers “we clean everything” just told you it either doesn’t know where the lines are or doesn’t care. Either way, the fire code liability stays with you.
How to Read the Answers
The questions are half the job. Checking what you hear is the other half, and the full process for vetting a commercial kitchen cleaning company walks through verifying insurance, references, and credentials step by step.
Shortlist a company when you see all five of these:
- The certificate of insurance shows up within a day, from the agent, with your restaurant named on it.
- The references are current restaurant clients who take your call.
- The training answer names a real standard, not a shrug.
- The scope arrives in writing, task by task, before you’ve signed anything.
- The answer to “what won’t you clean” names the specialist trades by name.
Walk away when you see any of these:
- Hesitation or excuses around insurance paperwork.
- No restaurant references at all.
- “We clean everything.”
- A scope that stays vague after you’ve asked twice.
- A price far below every other bid. A lowball number has its own logic, and the cheapest cleaning quote usually costs you more once that logic plays out in your kitchen.
Interview at least two companies, three if your kitchen runs high volume. Then trust the pattern you saw: the company that answered every question without flinching is showing you how the whole relationship will run.
If you’re interviewing companies in Northeast Pennsylvania, we’d be glad to be on your list. Excellence Janitorial has cleaned NEPA restaurants for more than ten years, we’re fully insured and registered in the state, and we’ll answer all sixteen questions on a free walkthrough. Call (800) 851-0806 for a no obligation quote.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I verify that a cleaning company is actually insured?
Ask for a certificate of insurance sent directly from the company’s insurance agent or carrier, with your restaurant named as the certificate holder. Then call the agent listed on the certificate and confirm the policy is active. A photocopy handed over by a salesperson proves nothing; a current certificate from the agent does.
Should I hire a cleaning company that has never cleaned a restaurant?
Rarely. Restaurant cleaning runs on food safety rules that office cleaning never touches: sanitizer concentrations, food contact surfaces, health inspection standards. If a company without restaurant experience wants your business anyway, ask what food safety training the crew has completed and start them on a short trial, never a long contract.
What should a restaurant cleaning contract include?
The exact task list by area and frequency, the per visit or monthly price, who supplies chemicals and equipment, proof of insurance requirements, a damage and complaint procedure, and a cancellation clause with about 30 days notice. If a promise isn’t written in the contract, it isn’t part of the deal.
Do restaurant cleaning companies clean the exhaust hood?
They degrease the hood’s exterior surfaces as part of regular kitchen cleaning. The hood interior, the ducts, and the exhaust fan are separate specialist work, governed by the NFPA 96 fire standard and performed by certified hood cleaning companies. Fire marshals and insurers expect a service sticker and a cleaning certificate from that specialist, so treat hood cleaning as its own line item.
How much does a restaurant cleaning service cost?
It depends on square footage, grease level, and how many visits a week you need. Most full service restaurants pay somewhere between a few hundred and a couple thousand dollars a month, with per visit pricing for lighter schedules. Get two or three written quotes on an identical scope, and be suspicious of any bid dramatically below the others.
How long a contract should I sign with a new cleaning company?
Start month to month, or with a trial period of 30 to 90 days, until the crew has proven itself through a full cycle of busy nights and at least one deep clean. Once you trust the work, a longer agreement is fine as long as it keeps a 30 day out clause.