commercial
Pub, restaurant and hospitality cleaning
Pub and restaurant cleaning costs £40 to £90 a visit for a daily clean and £18 to £26 an hour where it is charged by time, with a full deep clean running £400 to £1,200. The work happens in the few hours nobody is drinking, which for most sites means arriving at six in the morning after the previous shift finished at one.
What this covers
What it costs. Pub and restaurant cleaning costs £40 to £90 a visit for a daily front of house clean, or £18 to £26 an hour. Full cost breakdown.
What the job covers
- Front of house cleaned before doors open
- Bar tops, drip trays, glass washers and the floor behind the bar
- Cellar floors, lines and stillage
- Toilets through the day as well as at close
- Kitchen deep cleans between the extract system's visits
What is involved
The floor behind the bar is the job nobody outside the trade expects. Beer, sugar and ice go down there all night, dry into a film that a mop spreads rather than lifts, and the matting over the top hides it. It needs stripping periodically rather than mopping, and a site where it has never been done is obvious from the sound your shoes make.
The cellar is a separate discipline again. It is a food area kept to a temperature the beer depends on, the floor and the stillage carry spilled beer, and a cellar that smells is a cellar affecting what is being served above it. Line cleaning belongs to the cellar service rather than the cleaning contract, and knowing where that boundary sits avoids each side assuming the other did it.
Toilets are what the hygiene rating and the reviews both turn on, and they are the one area that cannot be done once before opening. Busy sites buy a check through the evening, which is a different shift from the morning clean and is priced as one.
Choosing someone for the job
Ask what time they can start and finish. A site closing at one and opening at eleven has a narrow window and the whole arrangement depends on it.
Ask whether the floor behind the bar is stripped or mopped, and how often. Mopping alone builds the film rather than removing it.
Ask where their work stops and the cellar service begins. Lines, coolers and stillage are commonly assumed by both sides and done by neither.
Common questions
When does the cleaning happen?
Early morning for most sites, between the previous night's close and the next day's opening. Busy places add an evening toilet check, which is a separate shift and is priced separately.
Does it help the food hygiene rating?
It contributes. The rating covers hygiene, structure and management, so cleaning affects two of the three, and the records a contractor keeps help with the third.