Restroom cleaning checklist and log for a café or restaurant (free template)

Guests who never see your kitchen do see your restroom, and many of them judge the kitchen by it. Inspectors look too: the toilet room has its own short list of rules in the FDA Food Code, and an empty soap dispenser at the restroom sink is the kind of thing that ends up on a report.

This post gives you a restroom checklist split by time of day, a check log for the back of the door, a supply par list and the rules behind each line.

General information. Your state or local health department enforces its own edition of the Food Code, and your cleaning product's label sets how it's used. Section numbers below are from the FDA Food Code 2026.

What the Food Code says about toilet rooms

The rules are short, and most of them are about what has to be there:

Two more rules come up when you clean:

• Mop water doesn't go down the toilet. "Toilets and urinals may not be used as a service sink for the disposal of mop water and similar liquid waste" (§5-203.13(B)). Use the mop sink.
• Hands get washed after. Food employees wash "After using the toilet room" (§2-301.14(B)) and "After engaging in other activities that contaminate the hands" (§2-301.14(I)). Cleaning a toilet is one. They wash at a hand sink, never in a prep or dish sink or the mop sink (§2-301.15).

The restroom checklist

Adapt the bracketed parts. One copy per restroom if you have more than one.

Opening (before the doors open)

• [ ] Toilet, seat, rim and base clean; flushes properly
• [ ] Sink, faucet and counter clean and dry
• [ ] Mirror clean
• [ ] Floor swept and mopped, including behind the toilet
• [ ] Soap dispenser full and working
• [ ] Paper towels full, or hand dryer working
• [ ] Toilet tissue on the roll and a spare in the room
• [ ] Covered bin emptied and lid working
• [ ] Hand-drying bin emptied
• [ ] [Baby changing table clean and strap working]
• [ ] Door closes and latches by itself
• [ ] Lights working; [exhaust fan running]
• [ ] Check log on the back of the door started for today

Check rounds (every [60] minutes while open, more often in a rush)

• [ ] Restock tissue, soap and towels
• [ ] Wipe the sink, counter and any splashes
• [ ] Pick up paper from the floor; spot-mop spills
• [ ] Check the toilet is flushed and not clogged
• [ ] Empty bins that are more than [half] full
• [ ] Initial the log

Closing

• [ ] Full clean of toilet, urinal, sink, counter and mirror (order below)
• [ ] Bins emptied, new liners in
• [ ] Door handles, light switch, flush handle and dispenser buttons disinfected
• [ ] Floor mopped, mop water emptied in the mop sink
• [ ] Supplies filled for the morning
• [ ] Anything broken written on the [manager log] for repair

Weekly deep clean ([day])

• [ ] Walls and partitions around the toilet and urinal washed
• [ ] Floor drain cleared and grout scrubbed
• [ ] Vents and exhaust fan cover dusted
• [ ] Dispensers cleaned inside and out
• [ ] Under the sink and behind the toilet checked for leaks and pests
• [ ] Door, frame and kick plate washed

The cleaning order

Clean from cleanest to dirtiest and from top to bottom, so dirt only falls onto what you haven't cleaned yet:

1. Gloves on. Restock and empty bins first.
2. Spray the toilet bowl and urinal with the bowl cleaner and let it stand for the time on the label.
3. Mirror, then dispensers, then the sink and counter.
4. Door handle, light switch and other touch points.
5. Toilet: outside of the tank, the handle, the seat both sides, the rim, then the bowl with the brush. Urinal the same way.
6. Floor last, working toward the door.
7. Gloves off, hands washed at a hand sink.

Use the products your supplier set you up with, at the strength and contact time on their labels, and keep restroom cloths, brushes and gloves for the restroom only; a color for restroom tools makes that easy to see. Store chemicals away from food and single-use items; our chemical inventory and SDS binder post covers storage and labels.

Vomit or diarrhea in a restroom is a different job with its own written procedure and kit. See our vomit and diarrhea clean-up procedure.

The check log for the back of the door

Post this inside the restroom door, one sheet a day. It shows guests the restroom is looked after and shows you who checked it.

[Café / restaurant name] — Restroom check log · [Restroom: guests / staff / all-gender]

Date: [date]

Manager review: ………………………… Time: ……………

A missed round is worth more on the sheet than a filled-in guess: an honest gap tells you the rush needs another pair of hands.

The supply par list

Count it with your weekly inventory so a Saturday doesn't end with no tissue in the building.

Who does it

Put the opening and closing restroom duties on someone's list by name or by role, not "whoever has time." For check rounds, attach them to a role that's on the floor all shift (a busser, a host, a barista on a slow station) and name a backup for the rush. If you schedule minors, check your state's rules on cleaning chemicals before you assign the job.

Train it once with the cleaning order above, then check it: the monthly self-inspection and a look at the check log at every shift change are enough to keep it honest.

Your restroom checklist, in short

• [ ] Opening, check-round, closing and weekly duties written down
• [ ] Self-closing door that latches; door kept closed
• [ ] Soap, towels or dryer, tissue, covered bin and towel bin in every restroom
• [ ] Mop water goes to the mop sink, never the toilet
• [ ] Restroom-only tools, stored away from food
• [ ] Check log on the door, reviewed by the manager
• [ ] Supply pars counted every week
• [ ] Handwashing after cleaning, at a hand sink

Where Mays fits

• The checklist on everyone's phone. Build the opening, closing and weekly lists as checklist templates under Tasks → Templates, assign them to a role or a person, and set the Frequency (Daily, or Weekly on your deep-clean day). Use the Visibility Window so the closing list only appears at close. See Creating a checklist template and Scheduling and assigning checklists.
• Proof, not just a tick. Set the answer type to Photo on the lines where seeing is the proof (the toilet, the sink and counter, a full dispenser). With AI photo verification on, a weak photo is flagged for the manager or sent back to redo. See Task answer types and AI photo verification.
• Check rounds. A template creates its tasks once a day, so make each round its own task (Restroom check · 11:00, Restroom check · 12:00…) on a daily template that's visible during opening hours. Each completed task records who did it and when. See Reviewing and rejecting completed tasks.
• Supplies. Put an Inventory Count task on the weekly list with tissue, soap and towels, each with its Min Stock (your par). When a count comes in under the minimum, Mays adds a Restock Order task for managers. See Inventory-count and restock tasks.

What Mays doesn't do: there's no repeating task that comes back every hour on its own, and nothing reminds staff when a round is due, so the round tasks wait on the list until someone does them. The check log on the door stays on paper.

A clean restroom is a routine

Write the duties down by time of day, keep the supplies above par, log every round on the door and read the log. The Food Code list for toilet rooms is short; what fails is the round nobody did. A sheet that shows the gap is how you fix it.

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