Balancing cleanliness and budget in a restaurant can be a daunting task. Restaurants are held to a high standard of cleanliness, and when corners are cut, there are generally consequences — anywhere from illnesses and injuries to lost business or, worse, closure. Most restaurants are forced to seek cleaning contractors to deep clean their kitchens, as kitchen help is rarely equipped to handle the scope of the job.

Randy Hughes, kitchen manager at Quaker Steak & Lube in Florence, Kentucky, was spending $1,000 a week for a professional cleaning crew to clean his restaurant. Being a kitchen veteran, he knew the importance of cleanliness, so the cost was something he accepted as a necessity to maintain his high standards.

However, $1,000 a week mounts up pretty quickly. Then Hughes heard buzz about a new cleaning system that another Quaker Steak & Lube in the area was using with great results — and less cost. He decided to try the system out in his own restaurant, and once he had the system in place, he realized that he would be able to save a lot of money and maintain a “culture of clean,” one of his most important goals.

The new cleaning system is the OmniFlex Dispense-and-Vac produced by Kaivac. The OmniFlex is a high-performance cleaning system that provides a simple, fast, and inexpensive approach to keeping floors clean and safe.

To operate, you simply apply fresh cleaning solution to the floor through the system’s built-in spigot, spread and lightly brush the solution into grout lines, and then vacuum the soils and liquid away. It’s so easy to learn that even an inexperienced user can achieve excellent, repeatable results. And like most Kaivac systems, it’s been scientifically tested and proven to be as much as 30 times more effective at removing soils and contaminants when compared to traditional cleaning methods such as mops and buckets.

Armed with the high-performance OmniFlex Dispense-and-Vac, Hughes took a different approach and put it in the hands of his kitchen staff. Not only did they achieve better results than that of the professional cleaning crew, but they were able to perform the cleaning in a shorter amount of time, and the staff liked using the system.

Along with the professional results, the system paid for itself within a week. Hughes no longer has to pay $1,000 a week to a professional cleaning crew, so $300 of the money he saves each week he distributes as a bonus to his staff members who volunteer to clean. Doing so helps underscore the importance of having a culture of clean in the restaurant, and it leaves him with a bottom-line savings of $700 a week.

What’s more is the restaurant group that Quaker Steak & Lube operates under enlists a private health inspection company to evaluate and score its restaurants. Hughes's restaurant recently scored a 96 out of 100. The inspector even complimented Hughes on the cleanliness of his floors.

Cleanliness comes at a cost, but with the right system, Hughes and his team were able to get the same results as that of a professional cleaning crew at a fraction of the cost, and they continue to reap the benefits and savings.