Put safety guidelines on your restaurant’s menu

Running a restaurant is a constant challenge. The profit margins can be slim, the hours are invariably long, and the demands placed on a restaurant’s owner are manifold. Still, for many it’s a labor of love.

Safety is one aspect of restaurant operations that every restaurateur needs to be mindful of. A working commercial kitchen can be hazardous, and for that reason there are multiple regulations to track and guidelines to keep in mind as a part of daily operations, with the ultimate aim of keeping everyone — staff, customers, and owners — healthy as well as well-fed.

To help you achieve that goal with your eatery — whether you’re working to create a solid plan prior your restaurant’s grand opening, or you’re looking for ways to improve your establishment’s operations — Grinnell Mutual has put together a group of downloadable publications that lay out some safety and operational issues.

Grinnell Mutual’s General Safety Guidelines for Businesses Serving Meals is a good place to start. This two-page fact sheet presents a concise rundown of the critical risk-reduction issues involved in running a restaurant.

Grinnell Mutual has also prepared Developing a Restaurant Safety Program, a booklet designed to guide you in developing a plan specially tailored to your establishment’s needs. You can find the booklet on our Preventing Losses page.

The devil is in the details

As anyone who’s ever worked in a restaurant can tell you, the work is fast and furious. If you’re not racing to fill orders during a mealtime rush, you’re doing prep work to get ready for one, and if you’re not doing that, you’re cleaning or preparing for a health department inspection.

In such a frenetic environment, it can be hard to feel certain you’ve covered every contingency. That’s why it’s important for restaurants to have documented fire safety rules and a training program to keep everyone current with them.

Here are some of the resources we offer to help you stay on top of safety in your restaurant.

Fire extinguishing systems for commercial cooking

There are myriad ways a blaze can start in any restaurant kitchen, so all commercial kitchens must have systems in place for dealing proactively with fires. This goes well beyond having the right type of fire extinguisher close by and extends to having an automatic fire suppression system because commercial cooking equipment heats up faster than that found in home kitchens, operates at higher temperatures, and uses vegetable oils that burn at higher temperatures than animal-fat-based oils. All employees should know how the restaurant’s system works, and what their role is in the event a fire takes hold.

Class K fire extinguishers

Even with an advanced automatic fire extinguishing system in place, because fires in commercial kitchens tend to burn hotter and be more difficult to put out, restaurants should have a special class of manual fire extinguishers on hand as well. These use wet chemical agents rather than the dry chemicals incorporated in the units most homes have under the sink. Class K extinguishers reduce the danger of hot or flaming oils by smothering the flames in a soapy foam, which has the added benefit of sequestering the fire’s superheated vapors and steam. This also more quickly cools the appliances and oils, improves firefighters’ visibility, and makes for easier cleanup in a blaze’s aftermath.

Hoods, grease removal devices, and exhaust duct systems

A commercial kitchen is equipped with multiple sources of heat for cooking — deep-fat fryers, grills, electric and gas stoves, and surface burners, to name a few. Cooking produces grease, and grease — as a flammable substance — needs to be dealt with, particularly when it’s produced in the volumes common to commercial restaurant operations. Your restaurant’s kitchen should be equipped with an exhaust system that will carry the smoke and grease of cooking away from the kitchen and vent it safely elsewhere. This requires a specialized air-handling system, which generally consists of a hood that uses powerful fans to draw up the heat and vapors, routing them through traps and filters and into ductwork, carrying them away from the kitchen.

The information included here was obtained from sources believed to be reliable, however Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company, SI, and its employees make no guarantee of results and assume no liability in connection with any training, materials, suggestions, or information provided. It is the user’s responsibility to confirm compliance with any applicable local, state, or federal regulations. Information obtained from or via Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company, SI, should not be used as the basis for legal advice and should be confirmed with alternative sources.

Sources: U.S. Fire Administration; www.firesafetysearch.com

5/2025