A fresh record before every shift
A daily schedule creates the day’s checklist before the opener arrives, with the opening manager, closing manager and duty chef assigned, and closing tasks due at your closing time.
Restaurant Opening & Closing Checklist Template
The checks that keep a kitchen safe fall at the two worst moments of the day: before the first coffee, and after the last cover when everyone wants to go home. That is exactly when a fridge reading gets guessed and a fryer gets left on.
This free restaurant opening and closing checklist gives general managers, head chefs and multi-site operators one record for each trading day, started automatically before the first shift arrives. It walks the opening team through the building, equipment, temperatures and allergen briefing, records deliveries, hot holding and cooling during service, then takes the closing team through shut-down, cleaning, cash-up, waste and lock-up. Delivery checks, cooling logs and deep-clean tasks appear only on the days they apply, and the day is not finished until the closing manager signs it off.
Why One Checklist Should Cover the Whole Trading Day
Most kitchens keep opening and closing sheets separately, filled in by managers who rarely overlap. Yet each half depends on the other. The opener inherits whatever the closer left: unlabelled food, a walk-in door left ajar, a dishwasher fault mentioned to nobody.
The UK Food Standards Agency’s Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB) pack already treats the day as one unit. Its diary has the manager sign each day to confirm the opening and closing checks were done, with a note of anything that went differently and what was done about it. This template follows the same logic: a single checklist per trading day, opened by one manager and signed off by another, so the record an environmental health officer or US health inspector asks to see is complete in one place.
The opening team
Proves the site is safe to trade
- Building secure, no pests, no overnight leaks or failures
- Fridges, freezers and displays at temperature, food in date
- Hand-wash basins stocked and staff fit to work
- Today’s allergens briefed before the first order
The closing team
Sets tomorrow up to succeed
- Food covered, labelled and dated, or thrown away
- Equipment off, gas isolated, kitchen cleaned to schedule
- Takings counted by two people and locked in the safe
- Faults and shortages written down for the opener
What the Restaurant Opening & Closing Checklist Covers
Seven phases follow the trading day from the opener’s arrival to the closer’s sign-off. Delivery checks and cooling logs in Phase 4 appear only on the days they apply, and the deep-clean tasks in Phase 5 only on the weekly deep-clean night.
Scope
Phase 1: Set Up the Trading Day
Three yes/no questions here decide which delivery, cooling and deep-clean tasks today’s checklist shows.
- Name the opening manager, closing manager and duty chef — tasks and both sign-offs are assigned from these three fields
- Answer today’s scope questions — are deliveries expected, will food be cooked and cooled for later service, and is tonight the weekly deep clean
- Read yesterday’s closing notes — equipment faults, low stock, dishes taken off the menu and anything the closer flagged
- Check the rota against the bookings — covers, large parties, and someone who can answer allergen questions on every shift
Opening
Phase 2: Open Up the Building & Equipment
- Disarm the alarm and walk the premises first — signs of forced entry, leaks, power cuts or equipment left running overnight
- Look for pest activity — droppings, gnawed packaging, flies, and the state of bait points and fly killers
- Start extraction and gas in your site’s order — canopy fan first where the gas supply is interlocked with it
- Switch on and check cooking and hot-holding equipment — pilot lights, fryer oil level and colour, bain-marie water
- Check hand-wash basins, toilets and the dishwasher — soap, paper towels, hot water, detergent and rinse aid
- Count the opening floats — with a second person present, recording the amount issued to each till
Food Safety
Phase 3: Opening Temperatures, Dates & Allergens
- Record every fridge, freezer and chilled display temperature — aim for 5°C or below; above 8°C in the UK or 41°F in the US, move the food and decide what is discarded
- Check date labels across the walk-in and prep fridges — anything past its use-by or your own shelf life goes, and unlabelled containers are treated as out of date
- Check the probe thermometer — in iced water before it is used to sign off anything else
- Confirm everyone on shift is fit to work — nobody handling food with vomiting or diarrhoea, uniforms clean, cuts covered
- Brief the team on today’s allergens — specials, recipe or supplier changes, and who answers allergen questions on the floor
- Opening manager approval to open the doors — required; given only once every reading above is recorded or a corrective action is noted
Service
Phase 4: Deliveries, Hot Holding & Cooling
The delivery tasks are shown only on delivery days, and the cooling log only when food is being cooled for later use.
- Check deliveries on arrival — chilled goods at the same cold-holding limits, packaging intact, use-by dates long enough to use
- Put chilled and frozen deliveries away straight away — and photograph any rejected item next to the delivery note
- Probe hot-held food at set times through service — 63°C or above in the UK, 135°F or above in the US
- Log food being cooled for later use — start time and temperatures, so you can show it cooled within the limits in Section 4
- Note anything that went wrong and what was done — a fridge that failed, a dish withdrawn, a customer complaint
Closing
Phase 5: Kitchen Shut-Down & Cleaning
- Cover, label and date everything going back into the fridges — nothing left on the pass or prep benches
- Discard food past its date and hot-held food that cannot be cooled safely — and record what was thrown away
- Clean and sanitise food-contact surfaces, slicers and boards to the cleaning schedule — dirty cloths into the wash, clean ones out
- Filter or change fryer oil and empty grease traps on their schedule — only once the oil has cooled enough to handle
- Turn off cooking equipment and isolate the gas — at each appliance and the kitchen isolation valve, as your site procedure sets out
- Complete the weekly deep-clean tasks — canopy filters, behind and under equipment, walk-in floor and door seals; shown only on deep-clean night
Lock-Up
Phase 6: Cash, Waste & Lock-Up
- Cash up each till against the point-of-sale report — two people count, and the variance, voids and refunds are recorded
- Bag the takings into the safe and record the safe count — with the bag numbers, so tomorrow’s banking can be traced
- Take out general waste, recycling and food waste — bins lidded and the bin store locked so the yard does not draw pests
- Record the closing fridge and freezer temperatures — the last reading of the day, with every door shut
- Walk the building before arming the alarm — toilets, stores, back door and fire exits, then lights off and alarm set
Sign-Off
Phase 7: Sign Off the Day’s Record
- Write the handover note for tomorrow’s opener — faults, items running short, engineer visits and anything to watch
- Log equipment faults as maintenance requests — with a photo, so a repair is not lost in a group chat
- Flag repeat problems for the weekly review — the same fridge running warm three days running needs an engineer, not another note
- Closing manager approval of the day’s food safety record — required; it confirms every check was done or the corrective action is written down
Food Safety Limits Behind the Checks, US and UK
The temperatures in Phases 3 and 4 come from two different systems. In the US, the FDA Food Code is a model that states and local health departments adopt into their own rules. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the limits are set by food hygiene regulations, and Scotland has its own. The table shows the figures your opening and closing checks should be written against. Where your own plan is stricter, use that.
| Control | United States (FDA Food Code) | United Kingdom |
|---|---|---|
| Cold holding | Time/temperature control for safety (TCS) food at 41°F (5°C) or below | Legal maximum of 8°C in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; the FSA recommends setting fridges to 5°C or below |
| Hot holding | 135°F (57°C) or above | 63°C or above for cooked or reheated food held for service or on display |
| Cooling | From 135°F to 70°F within 2 hours, and to 41°F or below within 6 hours in total | No single legal time; cool as quickly as possible, and many councils advise getting hot food below 8°C within 90 minutes |
| Reheating for hot holding | All parts to at least 165°F for 15 seconds, reached within 2 hours | Set in your food safety management procedures |
| Date marking | Ready-to-eat TCS food kept more than 24 hours is marked with a discard date no more than 7 days ahead at 41°F, counting the day of preparation as day 1 | Use-by dates on bought-in food; shelf life for food you make comes from your food safety management procedures |
| Allergens | Nine major food allergens; sesame became the ninth on 1 January 2023 under the FASTER Act | 14 allergens; information must be available for non-prepacked food, and food prepacked for direct sale has carried a full ingredients label with allergens emphasised since 1 October 2021 (Natasha’s Law) |
| Supervision and records | A person in charge must be on site during all hours of operation; logs as your health department and any HACCP plan require | Food safety management procedures based on HACCP principles, which SFBB helps small businesses put in place, with its daily diary and 4-weekly review |
| Hygiene rating | Grading and posting rules set by each state, city or county | Display of the food hygiene rating is mandatory in Wales (since 2013) and Northern Ireland (since 2016) and voluntary in England; Scotland runs its own scheme |
Check which Food Code edition your inspector uses. The FDA updates the Food Code on a cycle, but each state and local agency adopts it on its own timetable, so many kitchens are still inspected against an older edition. The FDA issued the 2026 Food Code on 17 September 2026. Among its changes are a requirement for a written employee illness policy and an alternative cooling process for retail food establishments. Neither applies to your kitchen until your local code adopts that edition, but Phase 3’s fit-to-work check is only as good as the policy behind it, so write one now.
Corrective actions matter more than readings. A fridge at 9°C with a note saying the food was moved, probed and partly discarded is a well-managed kitchen. A column of identical 3°C readings in the same pen invites questions. Record the actual number, every time, and write down what you did when it was wrong. SFBB asks for exactly that, and a US health inspector reading your logs will expect the same.
Why Run Restaurant Opening and Closing in CheckFlow?
No doors open on a guessed reading
The opening approval halts the checklist until the manager answers it, and the day is not closed until the closing manager signs it. On a day with no deliveries, the delivery tasks simply are not there.
Every site, on one screen
Readings, photos of rejected deliveries and fault reports sit on the tasks that produced them, with who did what and when. Reports show which sites opened late or skipped checks, and any day exports to PDF for an inspection.
Opening checks catch failing kit, but they will not stop it failing. The Preventive Maintenance Checklist keeps fridges, dishwashers and cooking equipment on a service schedule, and the HVAC Maintenance Checklist covers the ventilation behind the canopy. The Fire Risk Assessment Checklist deals with the fryers, gas and escape routes your closing walk-round relies on.
Running several sites? The Franchise Brand Standards Audit Checklist is the area manager’s visit, while this checklist is the daily routine it checks. Stock that runs short at close feeds the Supply Ordering & Inventory Restock Checklist, and our guide to conditional logic shows how the delivery and deep-clean questions work.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should be on a restaurant opening checklist?
A walk of the building for break-ins, leaks and pests; equipment switched on and checked; every fridge, freezer and chilled display temperature recorded; date labels checked; hand-wash basins stocked; staff confirmed fit to work; an allergen briefing for the day’s menu; and floats counted.
What should a restaurant closing checklist include?
Food covered, labelled and dated or thrown away, surfaces cleaned and sanitised to the cleaning schedule, cooking equipment off and gas isolated, waste out and bins secured, a final fridge reading, the cash-up and safe count, a walk of the building and the alarm set.
How often should restaurant fridge temperatures be checked?
Neither the FDA Food Code nor UK hygiene law sets one frequency for every kitchen. Your food safety plan does. SFBB builds fridge checks into the opening and closing checks, and many kitchens add a reading during service for chilled displays and prep fridges that are opened constantly.
Do restaurants have to keep opening and closing records?
In the UK, food businesses must have food safety management procedures based on HACCP principles, and records are how you show an environmental health officer they work; SFBB’s signed daily diary is the most common way small kitchens do it. In the US, record-keeping rules come from your state or local code and from any HACCP plan or variance you operate under, so check with your health department.
Who should open and close a restaurant?
A named manager for each, who signs the record. Under the FDA Food Code a person in charge must be present during all hours of operation, so the opener and closer are usually that person for their shift. Cash should be counted by two people, and many operators avoid having one person lock up alone late at night.
Is CheckFlow free for this template?
14-day free trial, no card required. The Business plan is $10 per user per month after the trial. Full details at checkflow.io/pricing.