Before Anybody Cooks

A new restaurant is scheduled to hold its grand opening celebration Saturday morning, just 18 hours from now. The dining room is set, the refrigerators are loaded, and somebody has already hung the ribbon-cutting banner. The health inspector is doing her final walkthrough when she stops at the freshly installed dishmachine, crouches down, looks underneath it, and pulls out a tape measure.

Here’s the reality: the restaurant owner had changed his mind about the brand at the last minute, and the installer struggled to fit the new machine into a space designed for something smaller. The installer finally resorted to using short legs so he could squeeze it into place. As the inspector sees it, there is enough room underneath for water, grease, crumbs, and whatever food bits come rolling by to collect down there, but there is not enough room to clean.

The inspection fails and the grand opening is delayed.

The inspector did not fail the cooks, the servers, or the managers — she didn’t even fail the equipment. No one is cooking or serving anything. She failed the building.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the building itself is part of the food-safety program. In my career, I’ve forgotten this fact a couple of times too. I mean… c’mon. It’s a building.

But some of the largest and most consequential food-safety mistakes happen long before anybody slices a tomato or turns on a fryer. It’s in the design, the equipment choices, and where the sinks, refrigerators, prep tables, dishmachine, lights, and hood go. By opening day, a lot of those decisions are bolted to the floor, buried behind a wall, or permanently installed on the ceiling.

Catching a mistake on a blueprint is a lot cheaper than catching it after the concrete is poured, the equipment is installed, and a grand opening is less than a day away. That’s what this lesson is all about: the food-safety work that happens before anybody cooks.

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Getting Permission Before You Build

Before I helped open a couple of restaurants, I really didn’t understand this whole permission thing. If I find an empty storefront on Monday, install a range on Tuesday, buy a bunch of product on Wednesday, why CAN’T I start selling burgers on Thursday? The hood fan seems to work. The refrigerators are cold. And I’ve got menus and everything!

Here’s what dumb me didn’t know back then: before new construction or remodeling begins, you usually have to submit your plans to the regulatory authority for plan review, and when approval is required, that approval happens before the first tile is glued to the floor.

And plan review is a lot more than somebody checking whether you remembered to draw in the sinks. The regulatory authority is looking at whether the whole operation is set up to work safely: does the design meet requirements, are you using approved equipment, can food move through the building without creating unnecessary contamination problems, and do you already have a food safety management system in place or at least being developed?

That flow of food piece matters. A beautiful kitchen can still be badly designed if raw chicken repeatedly has to cross the path of ready-to-eat food, dirty dishes travel through clean-storage areas, or employees have to carry raw product past finished food just to get from receiving to prep.

Once the place is built and ready to go, there is one more big permission step: the permit to operate. A food establishment needs a valid permit from its regulatory authority before it can operate. The distinction is simple enough to keep straight: plans get reviewed before you build; the permit lets you operate.

LOCAL NOTE: Exactly who handles plan review, what forms you need, and how the approval process works will vary by jurisdiction. The important part is to know the rules before construction starts. Once the lease is signed, the equipment is ordered, and somebody is tearing up the floor, fixing a missed requirement gets expensive fast.

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The Building Should Help You Clean

Walk into an old kitchen. Grab a penlight and really look. Check out where the floor meets the wall. If you find cracked tile, missing grout, a couple of small holes, or squared-off corners packed with five years of mystery grease, you are looking at a building that is actively making the cleaning crew’s job harder.

That is why food-preparation areas need surfaces that are smooth, durable, nonabsorbent, and easy to clean. Floors, walls, and ceilings should not soak up moisture, flake apart, or create cracks and hiding places where grease, dirt, and debris can collect.

One construction feature actually has a name worth knowing: coving. Coving is the sealed transition where the floor curves up to meet the wall. Instead of giving grease and dirt a sharp 90-degree trench to settle into, that rounded edge is much easier to clean. It looks like a tiny design decision until you are the person with the mop. Or on your hands and knees, scrubbing away with one of those tiny little grout brushes.

Passing plan review is not a lifetime warranty on the building, either. Broken flooring needs repair, holes in walls do not get to become permanent kitchen landmarks, loose coving needs to be fixed, and missing ceiling tiles should not stay missing because everybody eventually stopped looking up. Standing water, broken surfaces, and little maintenance problems have a nasty habit of becoming part of the scenery if nobody deals with them.

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Buy Equipment That Was Built for This Job

Commercial kitchen equipment gets abused. It gets heated, cooled, scrubbed, sprayed, splashed with grease, hit with chemicals, taken apart, put back together, and then gets asked to do the same thing again tomorrow. Foodservice equipment therefore has to be designed so it can survive commercial use and still be cleaned and sanitized properly.

ServSafe emphasizes four characteristics that make that possible: foodservice equipment should be smooth, easy to clean, durable, and nonabsorbent. Those are not just four adjectives somebody threw onto an exam. They are what keep food, grease, moisture, and bacteria from disappearing into cracks, porous surfaces, or damaged material that employees cannot really clean.

There are three big names you should recognize on commercial foodservice equipment: NSF, UL EPH, and ETL.When they approve a piece of equipment, you will see their certification mark somewhere on it. Here are the three names/ certification marks you should recognize:

• NSF – National Sanitation Foundation
• UL EPH — Underwriters Laboratories Environmental and Public Health
• ETL — Electrical Testing Laboratories

If you see one of those marks, that tells you the equipment has been evaluated for foodservice use.

NSF is probably the mark you will probably see most often, and in an American foodservice operation, buying NSF-certified equipment is generally good practical advice. The important thing for the exam is that NSF, UL EPH Classified, and ETL Sanitation are all legitimate certification marks.

Maybe you’re like me. And you’re already thinking, “But who accredits the companies to do all this random certifying?” If that’s you, we have a lot in common. I wanted to know too. The only place in the whole world this random tidbit is ever going to matter is on a food-safety exam or bar trivia night. But since you’re curious and I looked it up, here’s the answer: the organization is called ANAB — the ANSI National Accreditation Board.

So the hierarchy is pretty simple: NSF, UL EPH, and ETL are the marks you may actually see on the equipment. ANAB is the organization behind the organizations doing the certifying.

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Certification Is Not a Lifetime Warranty

An NSF mark does not make a cutting board immortal. Once equipment is installed, managers still have to look at what condition it is actually in.

Current ServSafe guidance says equipment should be repaired or replaced when it becomes worn or deteriorated, unsafe, difficult to clean, or no longer functioning properly. A cracked food-contact surface does not become acceptable because the piece of equipment passed a certification standard when it left the factory ten years ago.

Maintenance should also be performed by qualified people, and ServSafe recommends following the supplier’s or manufacturer’s maintenance schedule rather than waiting until the machine dies during Saturday dinner. Maintenance is not about keeping a piece of equipment limping along forever. It is about keeping it safe, cleanable, and working the way it was designed to work.

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Install Good Equipment Badly and You Still Have a Problem

I have spent a small fortune on excellent commercial equipment and created serious sanitation problems for myself by installing it where nobody could clean underneath it. This is where two ServSafe numbers come into play: 6 inches and 4 inches.

Take an old dishmachine of mine. We were replacing a grandpa-aged unit, and of course the new machine got installed while I was on vacation. I came back, took a good look, and did a face palm. We had a problem. The contractor had installed the machine on stubby little four-inch legs. There was enough room for grease, food, and assorted kitchen nastiness to work its way underneath, but not enough room to get a broom or mop under there and actually clean it.

For fixed floor-mounted equipment, the basic rule is 6 inches of clearance above the floor, unless the equipment is properly sealed to the floor. Six inches gives you enough room to get a mop underneath and actually clean. In my case, the contractor should have either used the proper legs or sealed the machine to the floor using one of the approved methods and sealants. Instead, he broke the 6-inch rule, and fixing that little installation decision ended up costing a couple thousand dollars.

Tabletop equipment uses the same basic idea with a different number: 4 inches. Fixed equipment sitting on a counter generally needs 4 inches of clearance above the countertop, unless it is properly sealed down or light enough that employees can easily move it and clean underneath. Four inches is enough space to get an arm underneath and wipe the surface clean.

That is really what both rules are about. Six inches gives you room for a mop. Four inches gives you room for an arm. Same idea, different surface, different measurement.

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The Dishmachine Has to Work FOR the Kitchen Before It Works ON the Dishes

A dishmachine can be brand new, shiny, and expensive and still be the wrong machine for your kitchen. Before we worry about rinse temperatures, sanitizer concentration, or whether the dishes actually came out sanitized, somebody has to choose a machine that fits the operation and install it where employees can actually use it.

That means it needs to be convenient and accessible, and it needs to be located so dirty dishes and clean dishes, utensils, and other food-contact items do not cross paths in ways that create contamination problems. The machine also has to be installed according to the manufacturer’s instructions. A perfectly good dishmachine can become a bad setup if somebody wedges it into the wrong place or installs it in a way the manufacturer never intended.

The machine also has to give employees a way to tell whether it is actually operating correctly. Depending on the type of machine, that can include checking water temperature, water pressure, and cleaning or sanitizing chemical concentration. The correct operating settings should be posted on the machine so employees are not expected to guess what “working right” looks like.

We are not actually washing dishes yet. That comes in a later lesson. Here, the question is whether the operation chose and installed a machine that employees can use safely and verify that it is operating correctly while it is running.

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Lighting: You Cannot Clean What You Cannot See

A dim dining room can feel cozy. A dim corner of the kitchen where Manuel is using the meat slicer? That’s where Manuel eventually trims a fingerprint.

Good lighting helps employees judge the condition of food, see residue that needs to be cleaned, notice damaged equipment, and work safely around knives, slicers, grinders, and other machinery. Lighting intensity is measured in two ways, and food-safety exams expect you to be familiar with both.

• The first is lux. Lux is the metric way of measuring brightness and tells you how much light is reaching a surface. Imagine shining a flashlight onto a prep table: the brighter that patch of table is, the higher the lux reading.
• The second is the foot-candle. This one has a name that actually helps. Imagine a completely dark room with one candle burning. The amount of light reaching a surface about one foot away from that candle is roughly one foot-candle.

Both measurements are describing the same basic thing: how much light reaches the surface where the work is happening. The amount of light needed depends on what employees are doing in the area. In general, lower-risk storage areas need less light, service and support areas need more, and active food-preparation areas need the most.

Do not learn those as three naked numbers floating around the kitchen. Attach them to the job instead: storage needs enough light to see, support areas need more, and prep work needs the most.

One last thing: food safety requires us to replace burned-out bulbs quickly. Also… please use shatter-resistant bulbs or protective covers anywhere broken glass could contaminate food or food-contact surfaces. I mean… seriously. This should be common sense, right?

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Ventilation Is Food-Safety Equipment Too

A kitchen hood is not there only because cooks prefer breathing. A properly functioning ventilation system helps remove heat, steam, smoke, fumes, vapors, grease, and condensation before those things collect throughout the operation.

ServSafe gives managers a useful diagnostic clue: if grease and condensation begin accumulating on walls and ceilings, the problem may not simply be that the closing crew suddenly forgot how to clean. The ventilation system itself may not be working correctly. Hoods and ventilation equipment therefore have to be cleaned and maintained according to manufacturer recommendations.

That makes ventilation part of the food-safety system, not just the comfort system. Anything collecting over a food-preparation area eventually gets an opportunity to drip, fall, spread, or build up somewhere it does not belong.

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The Rooms Where Nobody Cooks Still Count

Not every facility decision revolves around where you cook. Employee break areas have to be located so eating, drinking, gum use, tobacco use, and general break-time fun do not contaminate food, equipment, linens, or single-use items. In other words, employee backpacks, purses, and water bottles cannot be piled on top of stacks of napkins waiting to be used for rolling silverware. Mid-shift snacks cannot happen next to open containers of to-go boxes and cups.

Restrooms matter for the same reason. If there is an employee bathroom in the kitchen — and that is not always the case — it should be convenient, sanitary, clean, and in good repair. Here’s a fun detail I bet you never considered: employee bathroom doors should close on their own. Why? No idea. But self-closing doors are, in fact, a requirement.

Nobody Instagrams a grand-opening photo of an employee bathroom door closing correctly or a break room placed somewhere sensible. Food safety contains a remarkable amount of work that becomes interesting only after somebody failed to do it.

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Closing Side Work

In The Weeds: We’ll Install it Later

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Chef’s Explanation

The biggest problem here is not the oven itself. It is how the sous approached her responsibility for maintaining the facility.

Using the oven during lunch was not some wild, reckless decision. The old unit was dead, the replacement was there, and Jack could not finish the installation in the middle of service. Fine. Use the oven.

But the sous was the leader responsible for the kitchen. Jack could promise to install the legs later, but the responsibility for making sure the equipment was ultimately installed correctly still belonged to her.

The moment she said, “Sounds good. Thanks,” she allowed a line cook with no leadership responsibility to make a consequential facilities decision for her. Jack could absolutely be assigned to install the legs later. What he could not really own was the decision that the oven could stay that way until somebody got around to fixing it.

Once lunch slowed down, the sous should have owned the next step. Jack could have been sent to get the right tool. Somebody could have found usable instructions, called the manufacturer, watched an installation video, or brought the installer back. There were a dozen reasonable ways to finish the job.

Instead, the temporary setup became the plan.

Jack meant it when he said he would take care of it. The sous believed him. But she was still the person who decided the oven could stay on the counter that way.

After that, other managers walked past the same problem. A closing manager saw it and did not question it. Then another manager did that when they opened, and another when they closed the following night. They did not make the original decision. They simply never challenged it.

That is how dangerous decisions get normalized. One person makes the call, everyone else assumes somebody already thought it through, and eventually the bad setup stops looking temporary at all.

Then, when the Exec finally asks about it a week later, the sous does not say, “I let it slide and then forgot about it.” She says, “Jack’s going to finish it.” She sidesteps her own responsibility and quietly puts the failure back on the guy who offered to help the restaurant install its equipment on his time off.

Managers can delegate the work. They cannot delegate the accountability.

The food-safety rule in this story is pretty simple. This oven is fixed countertop equipment that is too heavy to be easily moved for cleaning, so it needs the proper 4 inches of clearance above the counter or an approved sealed installation.

The management lesson is bigger: “I’ll take care of it later” is not a plan unless somebody in charge owns the later.

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TL;DR: The Least You Need to Know

The building itself is part of the food-safety system. Plan review gives the regulatory authority a chance to catch design, equipment, food-flow, and management-system problems before they are buried behind walls or bolted to the floor. A permit to operate is what allows the finished establishment to actually open.

Floors, walls, ceilings, and equipment need to be smooth, durable, nonabsorbent, and easy to clean, and they have to stay that way. Coving, intact surfaces, good repair, proper lighting, and working ventilation are not glamorous, but all of them make safe operation possible.

When buying commercial equipment, recognize certification marks such as NSF, UL EPH Classified, and ETL Sanitation. ANAB accredits the organizations doing the certification work.

Good equipment still has to be installed correctly and maintained after installation. Floor-mounted fixed equipment generally needs 6 inches of cleaning clearance unless properly sealed; fixed tabletop equipment generally needs 4 inches unless sealed or easily movable. Remember the physical reason: 6 inches gives you room for a mop; 4 inches gives you room for an arm.

Dishmachines need to fit the operation, be installed according to manufacturer instructions, protect clean items from contamination, and let employees verify that the machine is operating correctly. Lighting needs to match the work being done, and ventilation has to remove the heat, grease, steam, and condensation the operation creates.

And finally, a safe facility does not stay safe because somebody passed an inspection once. Equipment wears out, surfaces crack, temporary fixes become permanent, and people get used to walking past problems. Maintaining the facility is an ongoing management responsibility.

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Key Terms to Know

• Plan review — review of construction or remodeling plans by the regulatory authority before work begins when required.
• Permit to operate — authorization allowing a food establishment to operate.
• Coving — the curved, sealed transition where the floor meets the wall, designed to make that junction easier to clean.
• Nonabsorbent — resistant to soaking up water, grease, or other liquids.
• NSF / UL EPH / ETL Sanitation — recognized certification marks that may appear on commercial foodservice equipment.
• ANAB — the ANSI National Accreditation Board; it accredits organizations that certify equipment as suitable for food preparation.
• Foot-candle — a unit used to measure light intensity.