Free daily and weekly cleaning schedule template
This free daily and weekly cleaning schedule template — printable PDF or editable Excel — lists cleaning tasks by area with a frequency, a method and an initials box for every day of the week, so it is obvious what was cleaned, when and by whom.
Free. No email address, no sign-up — the daily & weekly cleaning schedule downloads straight away.
A cleaning schedule is only credible if it says who did it and when. A laminated list of tasks on the wall proves an intention; a dated sheet with initials against each task is the record an inspector, a franchisor or an auditor will accept. That is the entire difference between the two, and it is why every row here has a day-by-day sign-off column rather than a single tick box.
The method column is the part most schedules leave out and the part that makes the job repeatable. "Clean the slicer" means five different things to five different people. "Strip, wash in hot soapy water, sanitise, air dry, reassemble" means one. Write the method once and you stop training it verbally every time someone new starts.
Split tasks by area rather than by frequency. People clean the section they are standing in, so a schedule organised by kitchen, bar, front of house and staff areas gets followed, while one organised into a daily list and a weekly list gets read once and abandoned.
Anything that needs a contractor, a ladder or the equipment stripped down belongs on your deep clean schedule instead. Mixing a quarterly duct clean into a daily sheet is the fastest way to have a schedule with permanently blank rows on it.
What's on the sheet
Checklist — pre-printed tasks in sections · Landscape A4 · PDF, Excel and CSV
Header fields
Venue / site · Week commencing · Manager sign-off
Columns
- Task and method — What to clean, and how
- Freq — D / W
- Mon
- Tue
- Wed
- Thu
- Fri
- Sat
- Sun
Extra columns in the Excel version
- Chemical / dilution
- Contact time — Minutes per the label
- Notes
These are left off the printable version so the columns stay wide enough to write in by hand.
Kitchen — food contact surfaces
- ·Prep benches: clear, wash with detergent, sanitise, leave for the label contact time — after every task and at close
- ·Chopping boards: wash in hot soapy water, sanitise, air dry upright — between uses and at close
- ·Knives and small tools: wash, sanitise, dry — after every use
- ·Slicer, mandolin, mixer: strip down, wash, sanitise, air dry, reassemble guarded — after each use
- ·Probe thermometer: wipe with a sanitiser wipe before and after every reading
- ·Blast chiller and cooling racks: wipe and sanitise — daily
Kitchen — equipment and structure
- ·Ranges, grills and salamander: degrease and wipe down — daily at close
- ·Fryers: skim during service, filter or change oil, wipe housing — daily
- ·Combi and ovens: run the cleaning cycle or degrease, clean seals and trays — daily
- ·Microwave: inside and out, including the door seal — daily
- ·Fridge and freezer handles, seals and interiors: wipe, sanitise, check for spills — daily
- ·Sinks and taps: descale, sanitise, clear the strainer — daily
- ·Hand wash basin: sanitise, restock soap and paper — daily and during service
- ·Canopy filters: remove and run through the dishwasher or soak — weekly
- ·Walls and splashbacks behind the line: degrease — weekly
- ·Under and behind all mobile equipment: pull out, sweep, mop, sanitise — weekly
Waste, floors and delivery area
- ·Internal bins: emptied, liner changed, lid and body wiped — daily
- ·External bin store: swept, lids closed, no bags on the ground — daily
- ·Kitchen floor: sweep, mop with detergent, dry — daily at close
- ·Floor drains and gullies: lift, clear, flush and sanitise — weekly
- ·Delivery and goods-in area: swept and clear of packaging — daily
- ·Mops, buckets and cloths: washed, sanitised and stored dry, not in dirty water — daily
Bar and front of house
- ·Bar top, drip trays and speed rails: wash and sanitise — daily
- ·Ice machine scoop and bin: emptied, cleaned and sanitised — daily and weekly deep wipe
- ·Post-mix nozzles and guns: soak and brush — daily
- ·Glasswasher: strain, clean jets, wipe seals, leave open — daily
- ·Coffee machine: backflush group heads, clean steam wand, soak baskets, clean grinder hopper — daily
- ·Tables, chairs, high chairs and menus: wipe and sanitise — daily
- ·Toilets: full clean, restock, and check on the interval set in your service checklist — daily plus interval checks
- ·Front of house floor: swept and mopped — daily
Staff areas
- ·Staff room surfaces, table and microwave: wipe and sanitise — daily
- ·Staff fridge: cleared of out-of-date food, wiped, sanitised — weekly
- ·Changing area and lockers: swept, wiped, no food stored — weekly
What you get
- ✓Printable PDF, landscape A4, tasks grouped by area with a box per day
- ✓Excel (.xlsx) version with chemical, dilution and contact time columns
- ✓CSV version for import
- ✓Method written into every task so the job is repeatable
- ✓Kitchen, bar, front of house, waste and staff area sections
- ✓Weekly manager sign-off field
How to use it
- 1
Print one sheet per week and keep it in the area it covers, not in the office.
- 2
Delete rows for equipment you do not have and add your own using the Excel version.
- 3
Fill in the chemical and dilution columns from your own product labels before you print.
- 4
Whoever completes a task initials the box for that day, as they finish it.
- 5
Check the sheet at close: blank boxes are the jobs to hand out before people leave.
- 6
The manager signs the sheet at the end of the week and files it with your food safety records.
Questions
What should be on a restaurant cleaning schedule?
Every food contact surface and every piece of equipment, each with a frequency, a method and a sign-off. Group it by area so people can follow it where they stand, and keep contractor and stripped-down jobs on a separate deep clean schedule.
What is the difference between cleaning and sanitising?
Cleaning removes visible soil and grease with detergent. Sanitising reduces bacteria on an already clean surface and only works if you leave the product on for the contact time stated on its label. Sanitising a greasy surface achieves very little.
How long should we keep completed cleaning schedules?
Keep them for the retention period your own food safety management system specifies — a few months of completed sheets is what demonstrates a routine rather than a one-off tidy before an inspection.
Can I use this in a bar with no kitchen?
Yes. Use the bar, front of house, waste and staff area sections and delete the kitchen equipment rows in the Excel version.
Or stop printing it altogether
Rotahr does this check on a phone — timestamped, with the person who did it attached, reminders when one is due, and a PDF export when somebody asks for a month of records. Same job, no folder to search through.
Templates that go with it
Deep clean schedule
This free deep clean schedule template — printable PDF or editable Excel — tracks the monthly, quarterly and annual cleaning that daily routines never reach, with a last-done date, a next-due date and space for contractor certificate references.
Kitchen opening & closing checklist
This free kitchen opening and closing checklist template — printable PDF or editable Excel — lists the open and close tasks in the order you actually do them, with initials and time columns so the last hour of the night is never guesswork.
Fridge & freezer temperature log
This is a free fridge and freezer temperature log template you can download as a printable PDF or an editable Excel sheet — one page per week, with a row for every named unit and space for a morning and evening reading.
Free to print, copy and use in your venue — no attribution required. Written for an international audience: where a threshold is a widely used figure it is printed as one, but food safety and employment rules differ by country and change. Check yours before relying on this sheet.
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