# Kitchen Floors



## somecook13 (Jul 14, 2013)

I am helping to open a new restaurant over in Kauai. The owners had a tile floor put in the kitchen. I am trying to find an alternative for non slip floors other than those horrible black mats. I slipped on one of the mats and had to get surgery on my knee so I am trying to avoid them. Would love to hear thoughts on alternatives to help keep the floor non slip as much as possible.  

Mahalo!


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## cacioepepe (Apr 3, 2011)

Personally, I like the black carpeted mats. Yes, they get dirty, but a quick once over with a broom takes care of that. You can usually get them from your linen company, but If you purchase them yourself a spray down by the dishwasher.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

I hate mats......... I hate cleaning them, and once clean, they have to be dry (ie hung up or draped over something for a few hours) before they go back on the floor-- or bad things happen.Whatever you do, DO NOT get the perforated style of mat, where crud gets lodged in the perforations, they are a (deleted) to get clean. In retrospect, I'd rather scoop dog crap into bags than handle floor mats

Tile floors get slippery for a number of reasons:

1) On the line, grease and oil get spilled, sauces get spilled. Fair enough. Best solution I've ever encountered for this is duck boards. Think of wooden pallets on the floor. Except these are maybe 4 ft wide and maybe 6 ft long, maybe an inch or two off the floor, and enough of them to fit behind the line. Stuff gets spilled, if falls between the wood slats, you stay dry. If the slats are greasy or slippery during service, you take a cheap corn broom and sweep the stuff down the cracks. Once or twice a day the boards are propped up, floors swept and mopped, and the boards put down again.

2) Dishpit. If the pre-rinse table and sink aren't big enough, or the landing table for the clean d/racks isn't sufficient, you get wet floors. DIsh/w has got to rattle/shake excess water from the racks _while still in the machine _before he takes them off the landing table. Failure to do this means water dripping all over the floor. Bar tenders are notorious for this when they do a few racks and haul them off back to the bar. Another reason is if the dish/w gets too enthusiastic with the spray gun, or the area around the spay gun isn't properly shielded. A well designed dishpit shouldn't have wet floors, and if a well designed dish pit does, the dish/w needs to be trained on how to keep it dry. For kitchens with sh*tty designed dish pits, the best retrofit is again, duck boards.

One of the big differences between European kitchens and N. American kitchens is the way they mop floors. The Euros don't. They have floor drains. Cleaning a floor there entails sweeping, hosing down the floor, scrubbing it down with scrub-brushes on broomsticks, and then taking a giant squeegee-on-a-broomstick and pushing all the water down the floor drains. Any spills during service, and you grab the giant squeegee, push it down the floor drain, and get back to work. For places that do use a mop, the floors should be dry within a few minutes of mopping--that is, when you mop, you slosh water over an area with the mop, loosening up dirt, then you wring the mop dry, and suck up the excess with the dry mop, then move on to a new patch. I was shown this technique at my very first job--at Mickey D's where it was done with two people, a wet-mopper, and a dry mopper, but can easily be done with one person and one bucket and mop..

Hope this helps.......


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## flipflopgirl (Jun 27, 2012)

I tended bar at a smallish hotel that had the slightly sloped concrete floors and drains.
Always admired the grease free sparkly clean floors when I had to schlep my sticky equipment over there at last call.
I should sue tho... the memory of those immaculate floors haunt me. 
Every place I go I find it impossible to not critique the floors.
Carpet, tile, hardwood...it has driven me mad.

mimi


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## somecook13 (Jul 14, 2013)

Thanks @foodpump! I was not involved with the restaurant at the time of the kitchen design or else I would have had a lot more floor drains put in. I prefer the european way to clean the floors as well. But the duckboards sound like they might work. I also found a coating to put over tiles that makes it non slip called Slip Tech. curious to see if anyone has herd of it or used it before.


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## cheflayne (Aug 21, 2004)

I haven't used Slip Tech but in my experience with anti slip products for floors, they fill up with dirt and grim pretty quickly and are very difficult to clean, virtually rendering mopping into a totally useless activity. That and the foors will never look clean again


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

The slip tech is great for ramps going into walk-ins, and ramps in general, maybe certain "strategic" small areas of under 1 sq ft around the dish pit, or around tilt-kettles. However as Cheflayne says they look grotty very quickly and they eat mops and brooms very quickly.  They also eat shoes very quickly.....


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

Ah, I remember my days fondly of working in kitchens with floor drains and squeegees. I remember even more fondly my days of working in kitchens with an overnight cleaning crew that did all the floors, ovens, stovetops, and hoods. THOSE were the days 

I'm firmly in mop territory now


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## just jim (Oct 18, 2007)

Some products, like Wash & Walk floor cleaner, clean floors but leave a tacky residue.

Floors look clean, but give added traction to staff that should be wearing non-slip shoes.


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## matth3w (Jun 1, 2013)

the bright side of those smooth tile is that it's easy to clean

however there are three things you can do,

1. non slip strips that they glue onto stairs- run them in lines across the the area you work in

2. you can have it sand blasted- they'll come in one night with a compressor and sand make a mess and ta da non slip floors,

3. get your self a pair of safety boots- several makes have a non slip sole and are designed for areas with motor oil on the floors,


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

I dunno about that..........

The "standard" for commercial kitchen floors is quarry-stone tile.  By it's very nature, it is not slick or slippery, it does not have a high-gloss glaze on it, but rather a rough-ish, slightly uneven surface.  Of course when wet or greasy it is slippery. The trick is to keep the floors dry and free from oil, I believe I have mentioned some ideas above.

I am NOT a fan of safety boots in the kitchen for several reasons.

1)Boots are made for outdoors or unheated work areas.  Kitchens are warm and humid.  Boots get uncomfortable in the kitchen after a few hours.

2) Boots require a lot of material compared to shoes.  Leather is expensive.  Leather is also one of the few materials that "breathe".  Cheap boots are made with "man made" materials that do not breathe.  Cooks don't get paid a lot, so guess what they choose if forced to wear boots in the kitchen?

3) Safety boots have a steel toe.  This is not needed in the kitchen, no one is dropping transmissions or jack hammers on feet.

4) Yeah, yeah, I 've heard all about oil resistant soles, slip resistant soles, etc.  They don't exist, I've tried 30 years worth of brands.  Any shoe will slip on greasy floors, any shoe will "hydro-plane" (coast or slide on a cushion of water) on wet floors.  The only thing to prevent this is to keep the floors dry and free of oil


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## kaiquekuisine (Apr 11, 2013)

Yeh i agree with food pump on this one...

I have non-slip shoes for my kitchen ( easy to put on ,take off ,and are comfy to wear ) regardless of what you read of people tell you , when the floors are greasy you will slip. 

Floors have to remain dry regardless , i have noted that i tend to slide ( if you will ) less on the floors with correct foot wear , then using my sneakers or any other foot wear but that does not make them 100% slip free <_<


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## lagom (Sep 5, 2012)

"3) Safety boots have a steel toe. This is not needed in the kitchen, no one is dropping transmissions or jack hammers on feet."

I have to disagree with this point, plenty of heavy hard things to drop on yor toes in a kitchen, and in one of my kitchens we have a robot coupe stick mixer the size of a jack hammer, and boy does it do a job on 200 liters of anything.


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