Restaurant Opening & Closing Checklist Guide

Opening is your first defense against a bad night. High-performing teams verify equipment starts correctly, cold holding and line coolers are in range, and restrooms are guest-ready before doors open. The list should include filtered tasks for FOH and BOH, not one mega checklist nobody finishes. BOH typically owns walk-in and reach-in temperatures, line mise, fryer and flat-top readiness, sanitizer strength, and prep status against the day’s pars. FOH owns dining room layout, beverages, POS readiness, high-touch sanitizing, and any allergy communication setup the kitchen needs.

Add a short leadership block: a pre-shift huddle captured as notes or tasks. Cover 86s, VIPs, promos, known equipment quirks, and the top food safety non negotiable for that day. If those items only live in a verbal circle, they disappear on the third busy ticket.

Closing is where restaurants lose money and invite violations. Standardize breakdown, cooling and labeling rules, waste capture, oil filtration where applicable, cash procedures with two-person checks where policy requires, alarm set, lockup, and a final photo walk for problem areas. Separate deep cleaning rotations so close stays finishable.

Make each line a task with an owner, a due window, and photo proof on the steps that cause arguments or liability. Digital completion matters because it creates timestamps and history, not a page filled out at 11:59 p.m.

In Restaurant Codex, model these rituals as recurring Operations tasks per location, pair them with SOPs in the Knowledge Base for “how,” and use dashboard analytics to compare completion across stores.