Germ Hotspots You May Overlook in Restaurants
Germs spread and infect through contact. In a heavily populated urban area such as Melbourne, for example, where the average adult touches up to 30 objects per minute, germs can spread like wildfire.
That means a bout of seasonal flu could travel from Bowen Hills to Varsity Lakes on the Gold Coast Railway line in about 2 hours.
Restaurants that see hundreds of customers pass through their doors each day could become a breeding ground for bacteria and viruses. When you consider that 80 percent of germs are spread via your hands, it's easy to see how your restaurant might be at risk.
If you own a restaurant, know where germs might lurk undetected. Here are four of the most common places to find germs in your restaurant.
1. Tables and Their Contents
Unsurprisingly, restaurant tables attract the largest number of germs in a restaurant dining area. In fact, as many as 185,000 bacterial organisms could reside on the menu alone according to Kitchn. If customers bring germs into your restaurant on their hands, they could contaminate everything on the table, including the condiments and the table itself.
2. Seats
A virus or strain of bacteria can travel from one place to another via a person's backside. For example, if one person sits on a wall outside and then travels by train, that person's seat then becomes a contact point for flu bugs, colds or bacterial organisms.
Should just a few of those people that pick up germs in this way come to your restaurant, your seating will pick up those germs. At the end of a day then, your restaurant seating could be home to multiple strains of bacteria.
3. Door Handles
A customer who uses a toilet in a restaurant could then spread bacteria throughout the entire restaurant if they don’t wash their hands.
Even customers who wash their hands in the bathroom mid-meal may not be any cleaner as far as germs go. According to a study carried out at Michigan State University, only 5 percent of people wash their hands correctly. That is a worrying figure when you consider that a busy restaurant may come into contact with hundreds of pairs of hands in a day.
4. Self-Service Counters
If your restaurant has a self-service counter, such as a salad bar or drinks station, this is a prime location for the spread of bacteria. Drink-dispenser handles, utensils and plates could harbour several species of bacteria among other harmful microbes.
Get Help From a Professional Cleaner
When you run a busy restaurant, keeping it clean and germ-free can be a challenge. This task is especially challenging if you choose to use your own staff to keep the restaurant clean. Although they may keep your dining area looking and smelling clean, they lack the necessary training to locate and remove organisms of a bacterial and viral nature.
However, by hiring a professional cleaner to take care of your dining area, not only do you benefit from their experience and knowledge but also their equipment and cleaning agents. Although you can't clean every handle and menu after each customer, you can ensure that your restaurant opens each day, microbe-free.
Go Green and Clean
You can also go one step further to protect your customers. If you hire a cleaning service that uses biodegradable cleaning agents, you can protect both your customers and the environment.
If you would like to keep your restaurant dining area germ-free and environmentally friendly, hire a green cleaning service, such as Comclean Australia. Together, we can improve the environment and improve your customers' dining experience.
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