LineReady / Guides / Closing checklist
Restaurant closing checklist: cash, cleaning, and lockup done right
A restaurant closing checklist covers four jobs in order: shut down food safely, clean the building, count and secure the cash, and lock up. It's the list most likely to get rushed, because everyone doing it has been on their feet for eight hours and the parking lot is calling. That's exactly why it needs to be written down, and why it needs a record of who did what.
Front of house closing checklist
FOH: after the last guest
- Lock the doors at close; let remaining guests finish without seating new ones
- Wipe and sanitize every table, booth, high chair, and counter
- Sweep and mop the dining room and behind the counter
- Restock stations for the morning: cups, lids, napkins, sauces
- Empty trash, replace liners, and take bins to the dumpster in pairs
- Clean and rack the tea urns, coffee equipment, and shake machines per spec
- Restrooms: final clean, restock, floors mopped
Back of house closing checklist
BOH: shutdown and protect the product
- Cool, date, and store leftover product per your holding rules; discard what's out of policy
- Filter or cover fryers; shut down grills, hoods, and holding cabinets
- Break down and run the dish pit until the racks are empty
- Wipe prep surfaces, sanitize cutting boards, sweep and mop floors
- Final walk-in check: doors sealed, temps in range, nothing on the floor
- Label and stage tomorrow's thaw-pull
Cash: the part that turns into arguments
Count each till against its starting amount, log the actual and the expected, and record the variance, even when it's zero. Two people at the safe for the drop, every time, no exceptions for trusted closers. Cash disputes are almost never about theft; they're about a count nobody wrote down. A logged count with a name on it ends the conversation before it starts.
The last walk
Whoever closes walks the building once with the lights still on: equipment off, sinks empty, doors locked, alarm set. Then lights out. Ninety seconds, and it catches the fryer that got missed about once a quarter, which pays for every other walk of the year.
Why closers skip steps, and what fixes it
Closing lists fail differently than opening lists. Openers skip from unfamiliarity; closers skip from fatigue. A paper list can't push back at 10:40pm. A digital list shows every skipped task to the manager who opens tomorrow, and that changes the math. Nobody wants their name on the morning-after conversation.
Running your closing checklist in LineReady
LineReady generates your closing list fresh every day and records a name and a time on every box. Open the app from home at 11pm and you can see the close finished, or exactly which task didn't.
- Closing list with a due-by time, assigned to the closer from the lineup
- Cash Till Logs record open and close counts with variance per till
- Every completed task carries who and when, with no initials-at-9:40 mystery
- Tomorrow's opener sees the same record you do