The first hour of a cafe sets the tone for the whole day. The grinder needs dialling in. The milk fridge has been off the door seal all night. Someone has to check the pastry case, count the float, and get the first flat white out before the 7:40 commuter rush. A cafe opening and closing checklist turns that scramble into a calm, repeatable routine that any team member can run, even on their second shift.
This guide gives you a usable cafe opening and closing checklist, plus the closing routine, the fridge and freezer temperature log, the cleaning rota and the allergen matrix that sit underneath it. The point is not paperwork for its own sake. The point is that the right person can open or close the site without you standing over them, and that when the inspector walks in, the records are already there.
What good looks like
Good cafes run on muscle memory backed by a written standard. The opener does not decide what to check. The list decides. They walk the same path every morning: lights, fridges, coffee, food, front of house, float. The closer reverses it. Nothing depends on one person remembering.
The common failure points are predictable. A fridge door left ajar overnight, so the milk sits at 11C by 6am and nobody notices until a customer complains. The espresso machine switched on cold at 7:25, so the first hour is rushed and the shots are sour. A pastry put out without anyone recording that the case is allergen-labelled. A close where the bins go out but the coffee group heads are never backflushed, so Monday’s first cup tastes of last Friday.
An environmental health officer from your local council looks for three things in a cafe. First, are chilled foods actually cold, and can you prove it with a written log, not a guess. Second, can you tell a customer with a nut allergy exactly what is in the carrot cake, on demand. Third, is the place visibly clean in the spots customers never see: behind the grinder, under the prep bench, inside the ice machine. A clean front and a chaotic back is the classic tell.
Opening checklist
Run this in order. It follows the natural path through the site, so nothing gets skipped.
- Lights and power on. Check nothing tripped overnight.
- Read and record every fridge and freezer temperature before you put anything in or take anything out. Chilled units 8C or below, freezers minus 18C. Log it.
- Switch the espresso machine on first, before anything else, so it reaches pressure and temperature while you do the rest. A cold machine needs 20 to 30 minutes.
- Fill and switch on the hot water boiler or urn.
- Check the milk: date, smell, fridge temperature. Open milk gets a fresh dated label.
- Switch on the grinder, purge the first shots, dial in. Taste before you serve.
- Check the pastry and cake case. Anything past its date comes out. Anything going out gets its allergen label.
- Wipe down all customer-facing surfaces: tables, counter, card machine, condiment station.
- Set out the float and check it against the count from last night’s cash-up.
- Unlock the door, set the open sign, put out any pavement board.
During service
A few checks keep the day steady rather than letting small problems pile up to closing.
- Mid-morning fridge temperature spot-check after the breakfast rush, when doors have been open most.
- Backflush the espresso group heads at the mid-shift lull, not just at close.
- Top up and re-date milk as you go. Never decant new milk into an old jug without cleaning it.
- Bin and surface wipe-down before the lunch run, so you start the second rush clean.
- Restock the allergen folder at the till if any new specials went on.
Closing checklist
The close is where standards slip when people are tired and want to leave. The list protects the next morning.
- Last orders called, machine and grinder switched off and left to cool.
- Backflush the group heads with detergent, soak the portafilters and baskets, wipe the steam wands.
- Empty, clean and re-fill the grinder hopper. Old beans go stale and sour overnight.
- Discard any open milk that will not keep to tomorrow’s standard. Record waste.
- Move chilled and frozen stock to the correct units, doors firmly shut. Final fridge and freezer temperature reading, logged.
- Wipe down all prep surfaces, the counter, tables and the condiment station.
- Sweep and mop the floor, front and back.
- Clean the sink, empty the bins, take waste to the bin store, replace liners.
- Cash up: count the takings, reconcile against the till, set tomorrow’s float, lock the cash away.
- Final walk: lights, equipment off at the wall where safe, water off, back door checked, alarm set.
Kitchen and equipment cleaning
Some jobs do not happen daily but must happen on a schedule, or they never happen at all.
- Daily: group heads, steam wands, grinder hopper, all food-contact surfaces, sink, floor.
- Weekly: ice machine wipe and sanitise, fridge seals and shelves, behind and under equipment, extraction filter if you have a hot kitchen.
- Monthly: deep descale of the boiler and machine per the manufacturer’s interval, deep clean inside the ice machine, clear and clean the bin store.
Write the rota down and have the person who did it sign it. A signed rota is the difference between a job that gets done and a job everyone assumes someone else did.
The fridge and freezer temperature log
This is the single most important record in the cafe, and the easiest to fake or forget. Do it properly.
- Read each unit at opening and at closing, every day.
- Record the actual number you see, not a tick. “5C” not “OK”.
- Chilled units must run at 8C or below. Freezers at minus 18C.
- If a reading is out of range, act: move stock, adjust the unit, and write down what you did. An out-of-range reading you acted on is fine. One you ignored is the problem.
The allergen matrix
Every item you sell needs to be traceable to its 14 named allergens. A simple grid: items down the side, the 14 allergens across the top, a clear mark where each applies. Keep it at the till, keep it current, and update it the moment a recipe or supplier changes. If you pre-pack anything to sell, sandwiches in a grab-and-go fridge, cake slices wrapped at the counter, that food needs a full ingredient label with allergens emphasised, under Natasha’s Law.
The law, simply
Chilled food safety in a cafe is governed by the Food Safety (Temperature Control) Regulations 1995, enforced by your local council on behalf of the Food Standards Agency.
The duty is plain. Food that could grow harmful bacteria must be kept at 8C or below. Freezers should hold at minus 18C. Anything you keep hot for service must stay at 63C or above. The gap between 8C and 63C is the danger zone, where bacteria multiply fastest, so food should spend as little time there as possible. You are also expected to keep written records that show you are doing this, which is exactly what the temperature log is for.
None of this is meant to frighten you. It is a low bar that good cafes clear without thinking, because the routine is built in. You can read the FSA’s guidance for cafes and coffee shops at food.gov.uk.
Questions operators ask
How long should opening a cafe take? With a written checklist and a machine that switches on first, a confident opener clears the full routine in 30 to 40 minutes. Most of that is the espresso machine warming up while other jobs happen in parallel.
Do I really need to write fridge temperatures down every day? Yes. Checking is not enough. The written log is what proves to an inspector that you check, and it is what catches a slowly failing fridge before it spoils a day’s stock. Twice a day, open and close.
My cafe is tiny. Does the allergen rule still apply? Yes. Size makes no difference. If you serve food, you must be able to tell a customer what allergens are in it. The matrix is the quickest way to answer accurately every time, without relying on memory.
What is the single most-skipped closing job? Backflushing the espresso group heads and cleaning the grinder hopper. Skip it and Monday’s coffee carries Friday’s stale oils. It takes five minutes and it is the difference between a cafe that tastes consistent and one that does not.
Who should do the cash-up? Whoever closes, against a written float figure, reconciled to the till. The point of writing it down is that any discrepancy shows up the same night, not a week later when nobody can remember the shift.
Get the pack
The Upkept Cafe Pack turns everything above into clean, printable PDFs your team can use from day one. You get the opening and closing checklists, the kitchen cleaning schedule, a fridge and freezer temperature log, a daily cleaning rota, a 14-allergen matrix and a food safety diary. Plain English, no jargon, laid out so a new starter can follow them on their first shift and an inspector can read them at a glance. One quiet, ordered system for the whole site, ready to print and pin up today.