Cleaning Processes with Jerry

Restaurant Cleaning with HD Restaurant Cleaning and Daniel Mejia

• Jerry Bauer • Season 4 • Episode 1

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Hey everyone, Jerry Bauer here! I'm really excited to share this conversation with Daniel Meija from HD Restaurant Cleaning in Atlanta. Daniel and I dive deep into a topic that's near and dear to my heart - commercial restaurant cleaning that actually makes a difference.

I started as a dishwasher in the 1970s, and I've seen firsthand what happens when restaurants cut corners on deep cleaning. Daniel's built something special - a company that goes beyond surface cleaning to tackle what most people miss: behind the equipment, inside the fryers, underneath the hot line, and all those areas that are "out of sight, out of mind."

In this episode, we talk about:

  • The difference between janitorial services and true deep cleaning
  • Why steam cleaning beats pressure washing for commercial kitchen equipment
  • How Daniel uses video documentation to show clients results (this is brilliant!)
  • The psychology of clean workspaces and how they impact food quality
  • Building a team that takes pride in overnight cleaning work
  • Smart scheduling strategies for restaurant cleaning programs
  • Front of house cleaning, bar areas, and those sticky-sweet messes
  • Health inspection preparedness and raising cleanliness standards

Daniel shares his journey from doing one-off jobs to incorporating HD Restaurant Cleaning and growing his team. We also talk about the real cost versus price of cleaning - something every restaurant owner needs to understand.

Whether you're a restaurant owner, kitchen manager, or someone in the cleaning industry, this conversation offers practical insights and solutions to help you save time, effort, and money in your operations.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, review, like, and share. Your support means the world to us and helps us reach more people in the hospitality industry who can benefit from these conversations.

Connect with Daniel:
HD Restaurant Cleaning
Website: hdrestaurantcleaning.com
Phone: 404-947-7317
Email: info@hdrestaurantcleaning.com

Instagram @hdrestaurantcleaning

Connect with Jerry:
www.hospitalitycleaning101.com
Hospitality Cleaning 101
Jerry@hospitalitycleaning101.com

Thanks for listening!

Different Sites Below
https://direct.me/jerrybauer

Jerry Bauer
Hospitality Cleaning 101
Jerry@hospitalitycleaning101.com


SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Cleaning Processes with Jerry. I started this podcast, YouTube channel, and different things a couple years ago to bring like-minded individuals together to share ideas, tips, solutions, and possibly even do some collaboration to help one another. Because the cleaning in the chemical industry is huge. I don't think any of us understand how large it is. I always had that feeling, and when I started the podcast, I even learned a whole lot more. So today's guest is going to be talking about restaurant cleaning, a subject that I really was looking forward to this. Hopefully, after listening, hopefully you share it, like it, because we're all fighting the same thing now with social media algorithms. Want more people out there. Thanks for listening. Check out the revamp Hospitality Cleaning 101, where it's under a couple different things to upgrade that system as well. Again, thanks for listening and watching. Daniel, thanks for joining me today. Today we have Daniel from HD Restaurant Cleaning. Daniel, thanks for joining me today. It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. No problem. So can you tell us the journey of the company you have? And I mean, I know what you do, but can you explain to the audience what all HD restaurant cleaning does? Of course.

SPEAKER_01:

So HD Restaurant Kitchen Cleaning is a commercial deep cleaning, kitchen deep cleaning service that is offered here in Atlanta, Georgia. As opposed to any other cleaning company, we specifically specialize in deep cleaning, especially in detailing commercial kitchen equipment.

SPEAKER_00:

So you're in the Atlanta area in the when did you start this company?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it was a gentleman, Marcelo and I doing it about four years ago for a single client. And then we would take on one-off occasional deep cleaning jobs every so often. Um, it wasn't until last November where I incorporated the business and decided that I wanted to grow the team to then be able to service the increased demand that we were receiving.

SPEAKER_00:

Is there a lot of competition in in Atlanta for doing the same type of business?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, to my knowledge, from the research that I've done in the area that I'm servicing, there's other restaurant cleaners, but that's for more of janitorial services, more surface cleaning, such as like mopping or you know, sweeping, doing the bathrooms. That's that's where we differentiate ourselves because we're going above and beyond moving the equipment, getting behind the hotline, uh, dismantling pieces from the cooking equipment itself, just to make sure that we have that detailed oriented cleaning style.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, I haven't asked you this before, but because I just thought about it, as you talked about moving the equipment, years have gone by that we're now that have the adjustable where the equipment can move, where years ago, a lot of this stuff was just piped in. Do you ever have to remove the equipment at all? In other words, unhook like the gas line or the electric line to pull it out, or do is does all the equipment move well enough for you to get behind there?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, we actually do require all the equipment to be hooked up to the gas line from a prior conversation we had. It's it's a fact of a matter of having everything warmed up, well, heated up rather, loosens up the debris, making it a lot easier to clean off. So the gas line itself is long enough to move, and then we can operate our services around that.

SPEAKER_00:

So you can clean both the fryer as well as the wall, the stainless steel wall and stuff like that. Correct. Yeah, we can clean the wall behind, the floors beneath, the sides of the machines. So I've looked at a a lot of your videos. In fact, I think I've seen all of them so far, and I know that a lot of the the work that you do is around the the deep fryer themselves. Now, with that, I've also saw in the video you use steam cleaning. So I assume the steam helps soften up the grease and stuff like that inside. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01:

When you're talking about commercial kitchen equipment, you also have to keep in mind that there are electrical components that turn on the ignition or the pilot light rather. And as opposed to servicing a hood exhaust system where you see thick, thick grease that's built up in there, we aren't able to do pressure wash, anything near electrical components, or else it'll cause major water damage. It'll just require technicians come in. It's just more of a headache, right? So we take that approach with by investing into commercial steam cleaners so that as you said, it loosens up degrees. That coupled with the specific degreases that we use will then melt it and then we go in by hand to then scrape off the majority so that it's a more detailed service that we provide.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, with your team, do are you ever is it required because of the size of the job where you do two nights in a row? Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01:

More often than not, you know, it it's just a fact of a matter of like even with a full team one night, if they have a decent amount of equipment that hasn't been maintained in quite some time, then it'll require an extra day or two to complete the job, just to our standards, of course.

SPEAKER_00:

And we had spoken that, which I think is tell the audience about how the camera and videos have helped you because you take the before and after um of all the work. Am I correct? Of course. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So I've seen in many different scenarios where the contact, my client that I've been speaking with, they aren't able to come in the morning of to see the the results that we provided. And sometimes that they have their prep crew come in and make a mess of it all. It's still in better condition than what they left it at. But at the same time, I like to show them through the videos, through the footage that we captured during the cleaning of everything that we've provided as far as the services that we did that night. And after the service is completed, we send a link to view all that footage. It's going to be before and after. It's going to be walkthrough of the kitchen of everything we did and just the results that we provided.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Now on hood cleaning, you don't go up into like the flu because am I correct? That takes a specialized person with uh stuff like that, but you do the hoods on the surroundings exteriors. Am I correct?

SPEAKER_01:

So we aren't certified to serve as a hood exhaust system. So we've partnered up with a different company that we typically forward the information, the client's information to, and they are certified and specialize in cleaning their hood exhaust system. We've had requests to do just the canopy and the filters, which we've accomplished in in the past before. Though with that in mind, if the client does require their whole uh hood exhaust system to be serviced, the company that we work with does handle all that cleaning. So it's just coupled in that same package that they offer.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, what is the time frame on someone they contact you, they see your ad, they contact you. I assume you go out and do you talk to them on the phone first for a little bit and do a pre-survey, then is it I assume it's you that go out and you can't bid every job's got to be somewhat different. Am I correct? You're 100% correct.

SPEAKER_01:

And even though two kitchens may be the same square footage, it's always gonna be in a different format, like layout rather, and different condition, right? Just in consideration for the type of equipment that they use within that kitchen. So essentially the process looks like this. A client will reach out from whatever source they found us, whether that's on Google, on social media, et cetera. I'll I'll reach out to them, I'll ask them a few questions just to make sure that our services align with what they want completed and also make sure that they're they are within our service area. And then from there, we schedule a free walkthrough that I offer just so I can meet them in person and show them exactly what we do in a kitchen to set expectations and show face.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, when you walk through, is it just you or do you have sometimes you have to take one of your team members with you? But currently it's just me.

SPEAKER_01:

During the walkthrough, I'm able to get measurements and footage of the space itself, of the main areas of focus, and make any notes so I can send all that information and footage over to my true lead, and that's where she kind of formulates his plan of attack.

SPEAKER_00:

Again, I answered my own question because I had talked we spoken more about video. I keep forgetting you you don't need your top assistant with you that day. You just include him or her on the job or video and stuff like that. So with this, I told you before weeks ago when we first met, and I talked on the phone. I worked in a restaurant as a dishwasher, and they would get calls, or technically they would know the health department was coming in, or the health department was coming in and gave them so many things to clean up and gave them a a week, a month to to do that. And frequently they would have no, trust me, this wasn't my idea. I was just the worker. They would have a lot of us work overnight and bring in, you know, some food. They would, I mean, I was under 21 and they would serve. Here we were, we were drinking beer and eating pizza and cleaning, you know. Then I would miss, I'd go home and I'd miss school the next day and stuff like that, what such as happens. We didn't accomplish a whole lot. And they've ended up spending more money in the long run because you know, the next day, if I had to go into work, I wasn't very good because I worked, you know, the whole night before. And you really do fill a void, and there's a difference between what the price of something is and what the cost is. And in the big picture, you could probably saving many people money rather than it being a cost.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, it's definitely different times, but even even in our time, you know, there's always different occasions, well, different scenarios that are happening. For example, just bringing up the fact of COVID not too long ago, that really that really changed the dynamic of the restaurant industry, I would say specifically. Just because now more than ever, people, at least in my generation, I sense that they feel like they have a lot of options. And so the quality of the work is significantly decreased since then. They have a lot less passion for what they do or care. So, you know, just understanding that fact kind of just keeps me in business because if you're just having warm bodies that aren't really caring about too much of keeping their area more like pride, they don't take pride into their work. And so a lot of things get overlooked more often than not, and that's kind of where we come in to pick up a slack and just get the job done. We do offer the overnight cleanings. So while you had to stay late, we just come in when everyone else leaves, knock it out, and then they come back refreshed, ready to go in a cleaner area. Right. And probably in a whole lot better mood as well. 100%. I mean, to touch up on that, I always do like to bring up the the thought process of if you make your bed in the morning, you know, that's kind of like the first domino, right? And it's a psychological effect where if you're just working in a clean and organized space, you tend to produce better results. Right. And when you think about it, if the chefs and everyone else are coming in a clean and organized space and they're put producing better uh quality food, that's in turn making the guests' experience a lot better, giving the servers a lot better tips, having repeat customers and clients coming in. And so at the end of the day, it's bringing more money to the to the restaurant owners' pockets.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Now, I am sure that it's a challenge for you to find people to work the night. So how do you find your employees? Is that hard for you to find people to work the night shift?

SPEAKER_01:

As with everyone else, you know, employment is definitely a difficult issue. So there's extensive, I guess, training that has to go on because at the end of the day, I'm able to set myself apart from anyone else because of my standards, right? Because of my services. So if I expand too quickly, hiring on anyone that wants to work, that could definitely make a lot more difficult of a service that I provide just because of more callbacks and it would just hinder the whole process. I haven't had too big of an issue finding more help, thankfully. Um, you know, there's plenty of people that want to work, and ultimately it comes down to the leadership, right? If someone is appreciated, if someone knows that the top is worried about the bottom, and it's not to say that I'm on a different level than anyone. I keep myself at the same level and just make sure that they're being heard and appreciated for the work that they put in because to work overnight. I mean, I I was already in their position not too long ago, right? So I have a great appreciation for the work that they do, and I consistently invest into better equipment, better quality suppliers to make their lives easier. Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, when you you've done numerous sized places, you've done different restaurants, what I call different stops and stuff like that. Is there any advice that it seems like you give everybody afterwards? In other words, the owner, the restaurant or the general manager, is there anything in particular sometimes that comes to mind where you have advice for them of something that they could help with?

SPEAKER_01:

Specifically for anything related to what we do, not necessarily. You know, the they they are in the position that they're in just from the regular everyday activities, right? Um, I mean, it really just comes down to being more conscious about the areas that tend to be overlooked. Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Well, I just I don't know why I thought of this. And then what I was thinking of that I see so many I have in my past, and I'm not saying it's current that way, because I do work in more food production rather than restaurants, but I've been in so many restaurants that didn't have rags. So they were using napkins to wipe things up. Well, napkins from the dining room, that's only going to destroy those. And they just never seem to have enough work. They never have enough rags because good terry cloth rag, or if you're leasing or renting your linen, they call them bar towels and stuff like that. Right. They have some absorbency where they can pick up the grease, they can help in cleaning and stuff like that. Because you see a cook, you see a chef, a chef will no won't do it, but you see someone grab a napkin, a white napkin that you'd have in the dining room. Number one, it's not going to help clean, it's not going to absorb grease and stuff like that. And I'm still thinking of those fryers that you work on that, you know, if they just if they just lightly, you know, ran a terry cloth towel over them, even a paper towel over him once a night, but I'm sure that's hard, you know, it's hard to it's hard to remember that because it's behind that door. Right. I mean, it it's this the old saying, out of sight, out of mind. Right. And I'm sure that has a lot to do with your business where you find stuff that people do you shock any of the owners when you pull out stuff and you have a flashlight and you show them stuff that they have, or do some, you know, just say, Well, I'm sure you've been not intentionally, you've embarrassed some where they go, I didn't know it was that way. But you know, it goes back to that equipment being being able to be pulled out. I mean, I pull stuff out of my home, you know, right. You ever you ever move the beds, you rearrange your furniture, you go, wow, didn't know this was under the sofa. So I didn't know if that was part of the deal.

SPEAKER_01:

So there's there's definitely a shock factor when I kind of point out the key areas that I I notice in any kitchen, really.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Now, how you're throughout all of Atlanta and then you go north. How far north do you go outside of Atlanta?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, we start our day off in uh Canton Woodstock area. So realistically, in any direction that we can travel about an hour or so without traffic, of course.

SPEAKER_00:

That's that's our service area. Right. So I guess the key to your business is to slowly expand because I'm sure you can expand. You only expand as much as you can continue to give good service, am I correct? That is correct, yes, sir. Yeah, it's it's it's remarkable because I think that you do fill a void of a lot of different people in the restaurants and it it helps out a lot. Now, do you go out and or is there request to go out in the front of the house of the restaurant at all to help in areas like the I did see in the website, I didn't mean to cut you off there. Do you do the bar area some as well? Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01:

We do offer front of house cleaning. It is definitely a lot lighter in in perspective, or rather in comparison to what we normally deal with in the kitchen. Um, you know, the way I like to put it is we specialize in deep cleaning commercial kitchen equipment, and everything else within the restaurant space is something we are more than capable of doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. I mean, if you can kill do a deep fryer, you can do the bars, but bar areas have what I call simple syrup, they have beer. It's gotten behind the wall, it's gotten below, just as many um est and stuff like that can be attracted to what I call the sugars, the yeast and things like that. Underneath the underneath the bar area can can get different areas that need your help. Let's put it that way.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, when you're talking about the bar, now you're exactly right. You know, you're dealing with a lot more sticky, sweet residue. Uh, so that is just increasing the chances of attracting rodents and insects. And then on top of that, you know, the drains themselves throughout the restaurant can also be attracting drain flies. So we do treat all the drains, we clean the drains, and then you know, the there's also the fact of like broken glass that gets swept into the corners and crevices, bottle caps, so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. I mean, yeah, if fruit flies are bad. And I imagine I'm not, I'm sure what I call the I'm sure that it doesn't help being in Atlanta where it it's it's warmer, it's warmer than where I'm at, and then you know, with the humidity and stuff like that. Because fruit flies can I mean, you know, it can hurt your business. Let's put it that way. You know it could definitely irritate the clientele. Right. And they don't frequently use the formula of trying to clean. I mean, let's be honest, some people just overuse bleach. And they you can go into an establishment and you can just smell it, and it turns other people off. It turns their customer off because they're looking for a clean, a quick fix, and you're more of a program. Is in marketing, and these ideas come to me as I'm jumping to, I'm sorry, but in marketing, I imagine is it a good time or do you find a lot of luck signings after you've done a job, you've done two nights, you've cleaned it up. Do you get a lot of repeat business where you go, Hey, let's pencil you in and get you, you know, we'd be back in three months from now, and instead of two nights, we can get it done in one night? Do you get repeat business that way where they're more likely to sign up for it at that time? 100%.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh so with the marketing aspect of it all, different clients are gonna request different frequencies. Some clients just use our service to get to that base level for their for their team to maintain it from there. Other clients want us at a more frequent schedule where they want us to come in every week. My suggestion is every three months. You know, that that seems to be the typical rate of the typical frequency that, you know, after that amount of time, there's a decent amount of buildup to then um, you know, go ahead and get us to come in and knock it out.

SPEAKER_00:

At least and they don't agree to it, that which is understandable, maybe at that time. Then in two months, you can send a reminder, an email. You know, it was two months we've been there. We we gave you a price on a three-month clean out or whatever you want to call it, you know, uh come back in, they're more likely to do it because then they're gonna go, hey, it cost this much. Because I don't know how often in Atlanta does the health department come around. Do you know? I mean, I don't have that answer.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, it it's typical for throughout the whole nation. It depends on the area. It's it's usually like th every three to six months. Right. And I think so. With with that quarterly cleaning, it just helps them stay in health inspection preparedness.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And I think I'm not gonna, you know, it's not a blanket statement, but I think a lot of that's cut back, you know, where they don't come out as often, and that just causes that's a dual, you know, a double-edged sword, it only hurts everybody. And that that's a shame because you want to be proactive.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I've I've definitely seen and heard that the health inspectors actually have been ramping up a little bit more, a little, a little bit more um in depth with their with their inspection. Um, but truthfully speaking, even after a health inspection, I'm still pointing out areas where where they should have noticed, right? But also it's it's not just the cleanliness aspect. You know, health inspectors are also looking and accounting for different areas, such as labels on certain food products, if they're wearing gloves, if they're wearing hair nets. So there's other things that they're looking for. Honestly, I I'm raising the standards for cleanliness for all commercial kitchens in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, most definitely. And in the health department, they can only do so much, and they're not they're not, you know, looking behind as as deep as you are. Just love, you know, in my younger life talking to restaurant managers and owners, and the ones that let's say they weren't, they didn't speak kindly of the health department because they're the ones who are at fault. It's not the health department who's at fault. They're doing a service. They're doing a service for the restaurant and they're doing a service for the people coming to the restaurant. If a restaurant tour, and it's usually more of a manager than an owner, if they say, Oh, you can give me a fair deal. I think he probably did give you a fair deal, you know, possibly where you didn't meet the standards that he was looking for. That's exactly right. I literally, you know, this goes back many years. I know a restaurant, it was a restaurant got a B sticker. This was in St. Louis, Missouri. They had A Bs, where New York has A B's and C's. So they got a B sticker, and it was like on a Friday. And they said, Oh, we're gonna get everything clean. And they'd been given more than one warning. And I knew I know enough to tell this story, let's put it that way. So the health department says, you know, you know, what we're gonna do tonight, we're gonna have a what they were gonna do is get all their employees to clean that night. And the guy goes, It's Friday. I'm not coming back till Monday. You know, you're gonna have to live with the bee. This company literally paid someone to stand out in front of their restaurant with their back leaning up against the window so no one could see the bee. My goodness. True story, true story. So, you know what my belief is, you know, it was the health department's fault. No, it's your fault because you didn't clean and stuff like that. So we're coming up on a half hour here, and I I appreciate your the time you've given me. We've spoken many times. Is there any questions that I didn't ask? And please tell people how to get a hold of you. And I put show notes on here, and there'll be links on there of your website, your LinkedIn page, and your different sites and stuff like that. I know you have an email and stuff like that. Is it best to go on your website? Because am I correct? Somebody can fill out a survey on there as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, yeah, I mean, they can reach me out through multiple different sources. That's what the best way would be through the website, hdrestaurant cleaning.com. They can fill out the estimate request form right on there. Um, I'll be reaching out to them very shortly after they submit the information. Uh, they could also reach me at my phone number, 404-947-7317, or email at hdrestaurantcleaning.com, and I'm more than happy to see how we can help them.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I appreciate the time you've given me today. I feel like I've known you for a long time. The the we've never met in person, but I I'm so glad to have met you. And now today, I've always wanted to have uh someone on with me that was in this industry because I'm fascinated by it, because I believe it really fits a need of most restaurants, if not all. 100%. I appreciate you for having me on. No problem. It's been nothing but a pleasure. No problem. You have a great day, and let's please stay in touch. And a week from now, after Christmas, I hope to have the video up and um the podcast out. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_01:

Can't wait for the house.