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5 Best Practices for Front of House Food Safety

Food safety isn’t just for the kitchen.

Keeping the front of your restaurant clean seems like a given, considering a dirty restaurant can scare off customers. And while the presentation is important, you might not know how important having a clean front of the house is when it comes to preventing cross-contamination.

Here are some best practices when it comes to keeping a clean and safe front-of-house.

Properly set the table

You might not have thought this was a food safety risk, but it can be when it comes to cross-contamination from your hands. Be sure to properly wash your hands and use the following tips:

•          Only hold silverware by handles
•          Never touch the rim of a glass; always hold by the middle or bottom
•          Always hold plates from underneath

Clean where people touch

It’s important to clean and sanitize the table after use, but there are a few other things that you may not think of but are touched very frequently. These include laminated menus and electronic ordering systems. Just think about how much these are touched throughout the day, and how high of a risk for cross-contamination this can become.

So, if applicable, when cleaning off a table after use, take the time to sanitize the menu and electronic ordering system as well.

Clean off your bar area

This area can be overlooked, but throughout the day, people are eating and spilling drinks in the bar area. Be sure to sanitize the counter throughout the day, and properly clean any spills—which leads us to our next point.

Properly clean spills up

Throughout the day. There will be spills. Use a wiping cloth to clean and sanitize these. But remember, be sure to do a proper cleaning and sanitizing at the end of the day.

Follow Buffet's best practices

Having a buffet can be hard to navigate when it comes to food safety. We have a whole blog article discussing how to safely run a buffet.

Here are the main points from that article:

•          Track temperatures and keep food out of the temperature danger zone
•          Have only one utensil per food item
•          Watch out for customers cross-contaminating food.
•          Monitor and switch out food if necessary

These are just a couple of the ways to keep your front-of-house germ-free and your customers protected. For more food safety information, check out our Food Protection Manager, Allergen Awareness, and Food Handler training.