For restaurants, takeaway venues, cafes, and fast food outlets located in popular tourist destinations or at the side of bustling highways, late December/early January is often the busiest time of year.
As Aussie families load up their cars for a well-earned Christmas break, many restaurateurs and commercial kitchen operators are gearing up for the for the long days and late nights of the tourist season.
For this week’s blog, we’re going to take a look at five preparations commercial kitchen owners can take, in order to ensure the safe and effective operation of their kitchen, during the holiday season.
5 Pre-Christmas Commercial Kitchen Cleaning Tips
1. Have Your Kitchen Filters Exchanged
While it’s important to have your kitchen’s filters exchanged and cleaned on a regular basis, it’s especially vital to have them cleaned before busy periods. 
With heavy-use and longer operational hours, your filters will be absorbing significantly more particulates.
So they will become filled with grease much faster. Therefore it’s best to start with a proverbial clean slate, or in this case a clean filter.
Having your filters exchanged now can save you from having to do so during the flat-out weeks of summer.
2. Replace Old Kitchen Filters
When having your filters exchanged, your filter cleaning company may identify old filters, which require replacing.
As described above, heavy kitchen use puts particular strain on your kitchen’s filters.
If any filters are old or damaged, then this strain can cause problems.
Your filters may not operate properly, thereby compromising the effectiveness of your entire exhaust system. Again, it’s best to have these filters replaced before the holiday season, rather than attempting to do so during the busy time.
3. Have Your Kitchen Canopy Cleaned
Take a look at your kitchen canopy. Is there an accumulation of grease on its surface?
Is it some time since you last had your canopy cleaned? Could there be accumulations of grease inside the canopy, away, where you cannot see them?
If you answered yes to any or all of the above questions, then it may be time to have your kitchen canopy cleaned. Build-ups of grease can be extremely dangerous, especially during peak times when your canopy is undergoing heavy use.
Sometimes, a stray spark is all it takes to ignite grease build-ups, making an unclean kitchen canopy a major fire hazard.
4. Have Your Kitchen Exhaust System Cleaned
A full kitchen exhaust system clean is often a big job.
It involves a scrape clean of your entire system, cleaning of ducts, fans and other appendages, as well as pressure cleaning of your kitchen’s canopy.
For this reason, it’s best to have your exhaust system clean undertaken during quiet/non-peak times.
Making the time for a full exhaust system clean during the holiday season can be a real hassle.
5. Get Your Air Conditioning Ducts Cleaned
Summer is (most-likely) the time when your air conditioning ducts get the hardest work out. Long hot days and balmy nights are a staple of Australian summers. And as such, effective air conditioning is vital for a comfortable restaurant or eatery.
If your air conditioning ducts are not properly maintained or cleaned, instances of dust, dirt and grime can start to build-up. And these build-ups can affect your air conditioning system’s performance.
Especially in summer, when your system is working its hardest, clogged filters, vents, or fans can make your air conditioning more expensive to run and less effective in operation. This is why it is crucial you have your AC duct cleaning done regularly by a professional company such as Lotus Commercial.