When you run a seasonal restaurant, one of your biggest challenges is preparing for the days when you’re not open. Whether you run a fleet of food trucks, a beach town brunch spot, or a popular dinner destination in a ski town, you have a choice to make.
What do you do when the busy season is over? Do you offer discounts and specials to draw in more year-round residents? Do you trim your staff and cut your hours? Or do you close down altogether and go into hibernation until the next busy season?
For a lot of restaurants, shutting down for the off-season is the only practical move. But you probably have questions about exactly what goes into closing down a seasonal restaurant:
- What should be on your seasonal restaurant closing checklist?
- What steps can you take to ensure your restaurant is safe, secure, and sanitary in the offseason?
- Which switches need to be turned off and which ones need to be adjusted slightly?
- What does seasonal restaurant winterization entail in your location?
- And is there anything you can do to make life easier for your future self, the one who has to re-open the restaurant next year?
Read on for our handy guide on closing down a seasonal restaurant.
10 Things You Need To Do When Closing Down a Seasonal Restaurant
From pausing your subscriptions to cleaning out your walk-in freezer, here are some of the key steps you’ll need to take when closing down a seasonal restaurant.
1. Create a Seasonal Restaurant Closing Checklist
While this guide includes a number of common sense tips for seasonal restaurants, every operation is different. Only you know exactly what needs to be done before you can close the doors for a few months. So start by creating your own seasonal restaurant closing checklist.
You might find it helpful to break that checklist into three sections:
- Back of house
- Front of house
- Back office
This should make it easier for your team members to check off their individual responsibilities.
Naturally, you’ll also want to update and adjust your checklist as you refine your seasonal shutdown process. However, a well-designed and thorough seasonal restaurant closing checklist should be a useful reference every year around this time.
As you build your checklist, consider including some of the steps outlined below.
2. Pause Your POS
If you use one of the leading POS (point of sale) providers like Toast or Square, you know just how much of your precious data is wrapped up in this system. That system contains incredibly valuable information about your sales, costs, and customer preferences. If you just pull the plug on your POS for the offseason, you risk losing all of that data.
In other words, you don’t want to just go and cancel your subscription. On the other hand, you also don’t want to pay for it while you’re not using it. Fortunately, vendors like Toast and Square have plenty of experience working with seasonal businesses.
Reach out to your POS account manager and discuss pausing your POS subscription without losing your historical data. Both Toast and Square should be able to accommodate this request. And if you happen to be a seasonal restaurant shopping around for POS systems, you’ll certainly want to find out if pausing your subscription during the off-season is an option.
3. Liquidate Your Inventory
Once the busy season is over, you’ll need to safely store away all non-perishable items while purging your kitchen of all perishable foods. Use your inventory system to review a full list of all perishable items in your stock. You’ll need to eat, donate, or trash everything that will not survive the off-season.
In an ideal world, you would also sell as much of this inventory as possible to your customers before closing your doors. So as the busy season winds down, you may find it useful to offer specials and limited time offers to help move the perishable items in your inventory and reduce waste.
You’ll also want to scale down and eventually pause your food orders as the busy season draws to a close. Make sure you are actively communicating with your suppliers about your changing delivery needs. A good inventory management system can make it easier to adjust order sizes, communicate with suppliers, and pause deliveries.
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4. Deep Clean Everything
Once you get all the food out, it’s time to give your kitchen, dining areas, and storage spaces a deep cleaning. That means scrubbing and sanitizing cooking areas, appliances, prep surfaces, countertops, and tables.
It’s also extremely important that you thoroughly clean and shut down all refrigerators, freezers, and walk-ins according to manufacturer recommendations. Usually, shutdown will require you to:
- Turn off the unit
- Scrub it clean
- Dry it thoroughly to prevent mold or rust
It’s also usually recommended that you leave your walk-in doors slightly ajar. This can help prevent mold and musty smells. If you’re not entirely sure how to shut your unit down in a safe and sanitary way, check with the manufacturer.
5. Go Into Energy Saving Mode
There are a few other systems that you’ll want to adjust when closing down a seasonal restaurant. For example, you'll want to secure all gas valves in your kitchen. That likely includes steps like:
- Shutting off the main gas valve
- Shutting off individual appliance gas valves
- Disconnecting movable equipment
- Capping open gas valves
- Locking valves to avoid accidental or unauthorized tampering
If you’re not sure how to handle these steps safely, it is highly recommended that you call your plumber or gasfitter for support. You’ll also want to set your thermostats to power-saving mode. But as we’ll note in the next section, you don’t want to shut down your HVAC system altogether.
6. Winterize Your Property
As part of your seasonal restaurant winterization process, you’ll want to put your HVAC system into automatic power-saving mode. This mode provides temperature control even as conditions change outside. Otherwise, internal systems like your plumbing and appliances could be damaged by extreme cold (or extreme heat, for winter resort restaurants that close in the warmer months).
On the subject of plumbing, you’ll also want to take additional steps to prevent your pipes from freezing and bursting during the winter. The Georgia Restaurant Association provides detailed guidelines for seasonal restaurant winterization and advises allowing your faucets to drip just slightly throughout the winter months. The Association notes that moving water is less likely to freeze, which can reduce the likelihood of pipes bursting. You may also want to schedule a few off-season visits from your plumber to inspect your pipes for leaks or cracks.
7. Prepare for Winter Weather
If you own your property, you are also responsible for clearing ice and snow from your sidewalks, walkways, and parking lots — even if the building is locked up. Failure to do so can result in legal liability in the event of an accident. Some businesses will hire snow removal businesses as part of their seasonal restaurant winterization.
Whether you decide to do it yourself or hire a service to help, you will have to maintain spaces surrounding your restaurant when winter storms occur. If you own a seasonal restaurant in an area that experiences these weather conditions in the winter, make sure you have a plan for snow and ice removal.
8. Secure Your Property Against Pests of All Kinds
You may be shutting your doors to the public, but you can’t just let that property sit unattended. An empty restaurant is like a playground for bugs and rodents. Take preemptive action by setting baits and traps. And talk to your exterminator about scheduling more frequent visits during the offseason. Make sure somebody is checking in regularly to empty traps and treat the property for pests.
Speaking of pests, you also want to secure your property against vandalism and break-ins. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to equip your restaurant with smartphone-connected security cameras. Make sure to keep an eye on your restaurant, or partner with a security company that can do it for you.
9. Wrap Up the Administrative Stuff
Tie up all of your back office affairs for the off-season. Among them, you’ll need to:
- Square away your accounts by ensuring all vendors and suppliers have been paid
- Provide your seasonal staff with an end-date and final payroll
- Notify your provider that payroll will be paused for the off-season
- Release seasonal employees while saving the data in your system to simplify rehiring next season
Some of the more comprehensive scheduling platforms can help you adjust payroll, shift calendars, and employment status.
10. Keep Your Customers Posted
Make sure to keep your customers in the loop. Update your operating hours everywhere that information about your restaurant is posted. This includes search engines and review sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and OpenTable. Update your hours of operation on these platforms (or contact your account manager for help making the update).
Naturally, you’ll want to make the same updates to your hours of operation on your website and social media profiles. You’ll also want to use these channels to let customers know when your doors will re-open.
Also bear in mind that while your doors are closed, online channels of communication are always open. Stay engaged and responsive, especially to customers who post reviews or send questions to you during the off-season.
The same is true for your restaurant’s phone line. Make sure you have a way to inform callers that your restaurant is closed for the season. You’ll also want to remain reachable for emergency situations. This is where a reliable AI-powered phone answering service can be extremely helpful.
Get the Tech To Help With Your Seasonal Shutdown
Hopefully these steps will help you to create the seasonal restaurant closing checklist that makes the most sense for your operation. If we could suggest adding just one more item to your checklist, it would be a review of your restaurant tech.
The right tools can help you shut down and start up your restaurant more efficiently and effectively. Whether you need a POS provider that can accommodate your seasonal pause, an inventory management system that can help you downshift your ordering as the season ends, or an AI answering service that can field customer calls while you're away, we can help you find the right solution for your seasonal operation.
In fact, we’re here to help you all year-round. Subscribe to our free newsletter to keep up with the latest tech, trends and headlines, regardless of the season.
