What does restaurant cleaning cost?
Restaurant cleaning runs roughly $0.12–0.40 per square foot, which works out at $200–500 for a routine visit and $300–1,200 for deep commercial kitchen work, or $50–150 per hour. It is the widest range of any commercial category: degreasing, hood and equipment work sit at the top, a nightly front-of-house wipe at the bottom.
Restaurants have the widest published range of any commercial type, and it is not vagueness. Nightly front-of-house close-down and a quarterly deep kitchen clean are genuinely different jobs sold under one heading.
Figures retrieved
What the market charges
The spread across these figures is scope, not uncertainty. A routine visit is a dining room reset and a kitchen wipe-down; a deep clean is degreasing behind the line.
| Scope | Rate | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| General restaurant cleaning | $0.12–0.40 | per sq ft |
| Routine visit | $200–500 | per visit |
| Deep commercial kitchen | $300–1,200 | per job |
| Commercial kitchen, hourly | $50–150 | per hour |
| Two-person nightly crew | $50–60 | per crew-hour |
Kitchen and front of house are different production rates
ISSA 612 separates them: a commercial kitchen runs 2,000–2,800 sq ft per cleaner-hour against 2,800–3,500 for a break room or cafeteria. Grease is the difference, and it is why a blended figure for a restaurant sits below either front-of-house work or above kitchen work depending on the mix.
It also means floor area is a weak predictor on its own. A small restaurant with a large production kitchen costs more to clean than a larger one with a service kitchen.
What is usually excluded
Hood and duct cleaning is almost always a separate specialist contract, priced per system and driven by fire-code inspection schedules rather than by cleaning frequency. A general cleaning quote that appears to include it is usually not including it.
Grease trap service, likewise. Both are commonly discovered at invoice stage by operators who assumed a nightly contract covered them.
Questions people actually ask.
Is hood cleaning included in restaurant cleaning?
Almost never. Kitchen exhaust hood and duct cleaning is a separate specialist service on its own inspection-driven schedule, and it is one of the most common gaps between a cleaning quote and an operator's expectations.
How often does a restaurant need deep cleaning?
Most operations run nightly close-down in-house or contracted, with periodic deep kitchen work monthly to quarterly. The deep interval is usually set by the kitchen's output rather than by its size.
Why do restaurant cleaning quotes vary so widely?
Because “restaurant cleaning” covers both a dining room reset and degreasing behind the line, and the two differ several times over in cost. Ask which is being quoted before comparing two numbers.
Related guides
Price a restaurant
The front of house after service, and the deep work a close-down routine never reaches. A real figure before anyone visits.