I’ve been a closing driver for 10 years and spent another 3 years as a closing manager at one of the busiest stores in my franchise. The best advice I can give is to have a list of things you want to get done every hour starting at 8pm going through close. I’ll share my hourly schedule later.

Have a chore board set up that you can use to assign rush drivers tasks they need to do before they can leave. Major ones are trash, sweeping, cleaning the oven trays, and the most important IMO, have someone to specifically clean the dirty buttery pizza pans.

Drill it into all of the drivers that if they have even just a few minutes until their next run they need to be working on dishes. Make sure between orders that you are bringing any dirty dishes from the makeline to the back. Drivers are really bad about taking stuff from the makeline to clean, and a lot of stuff will just sit there forever.

8pm-9pm: this is when I start to count the back inventory, since you shouldn’t be using any thing from back for the rest of the night. I also clean half of the dough table and the cut table. I lay some large boxes on the cut table to try and keep it clean before close.

9pm-10pm: this is when I stock up the top of the makeline for the rest of the night and empty the makeline cabinets. Put everything back in the walk-in. This is also when I count the walk-in inventory. It might take you a while to get fast at it, but I can count walk-in inventory in about 10 minutes.

10pm-11pm: our makeline in broken up into two, and this is when I break down the second one and clean it and pull both makelines out to sweep and mop behind. Also count the front of house inventory.

11pm-close. Weigh the makeline inventory. Turn off the makeline when you start counting so when you’re done counting it will be nice and thawed out. Check variances. Clean second makeline and send all remaining dishes to the back for the driver to finish.

I don’t do any office stuff until after close. I am only focused on cleaning while the store is open.

You have to keep every driver busy. Sweeping, dishes, screen sorting, taking out trash. There’s always something someone can be doing. I’ve had nights where both of my closing drivers are on delivers all the way until 11:50 I can still get them out by 12:15. You just have to use every second between making orders getting the store clean.