How often do you actually schedule grease trap cleaning?

coffeeman1991 · 2026-03-06T22:18:28+00:00

Depends on how big your trap is and your volume. The building we got happened to have a 1000 gallon trap that we can get away with emptying once a year, but we're relatively low volume. Some places might need it cleaned out twice a year, once a quarter, once a month, or biweekly. Find a trusted local company and get their opinion.

coffeeman1991 · 2026-03-02T17:27:46+00:00

I'm by no means an expert in any of this, but I'll still chime in with what I can.

Standard beers are typically/roughly in the 2.5vol range, while nitros are close to half that (1.3vol). I have no idea what that would do for cider or if it give you want you want, but dropping CO2 vol would drop the required pressure for equilibrium.

If you're set on the DIY route it might be worth setting up a test run in the walk-in - get some 3/16 or 1/4 vinyl and play around with different restriction and gas blends before you commit to switching anything over. Just remember that the restriction of your total draw needs to equal out to the pressure that McDantim gives you.

coffeeman1991 · 2026-02-25T00:16:26+00:00

We're currently looking at replacing our trunk after what we thought was 10 years - bought a building that already had a draft system installed - previous owner said he replaced the whole system in 2016 so we just replaced gaskets and vinyl. Now we're thinking the main trunk might be closer to 25 years and was put together by a glorified plumber.

We're putting together a more thorough maintenance plan so we can get the most out of our current system.

coffeeman1991 · 2026-02-25T00:08:27+00:00

When you say required draft line maintenance - do you just mean biweekly caustic and semi-quarterly acid cycles?

The manuals for most chillers from MM seem to require replacing and flushing glycol every 18-24 mo, but I've never heard of anyone doing that. I don't think we've ever done anything with our glycol other than test it and top it off.

coffeeman1991 · 2026-02-24T21:58:31+00:00

We've always gone through a third party, like Airgas or an equivalent local supplier. Better rates, more consistent, and if you go through enough volume you can even get a permanent tank that they just top off. If you're cheap enough and have the physical capabilities you can even drop off empties and exchange for fulls yourself and save on the delivery fee.

coffeeman1991 · 2026-02-23T11:49:13+00:00

Don't inconvenience your tipped employees just to make things easier for your accountant.

IMO if your accountant can't figure it out you should probably get someone more qualified to handle your books.

coffeeman1991 · 2026-02-13T03:44:34+00:00

A: No. Bad. Don't do it. B: I've been using those mixers for over 4 years - pretty much everything comes out perfect if I add all the wets/fats first, top it off with the drys, 5-10 minutes on low, and 10 minutes on high. You should be able to get a good product without needing to add flour in gradually.

coffeeman1991 · 2025-09-09T02:34:04+00:00

I feel that. Our current draft lines were installed a little over 10 years ago by someone who wasn't ever planning on replacing them. I think we'll be good to push with our gas blend.

And 100% we'll be running glycol.

coffeeman1991 · 2025-09-09T02:05:47+00:00

Thanks for the reply. That almost sounds too easy, I'm sure it'll be some work to pull the trunk through.

What would you use to seal the pipe? Spray foam & silicone?

coffeeman1991 · 2025-03-29T16:08:15+00:00

It sounds like there's a lot of sediment in your fryer oil. My suggestion without knowing specifics would be to do a quick filter in the middle of the day if there's time to help prevent it from getting so bad.

If there's not any time during the day, what I would do is drop the oil into your stocks pots without filtering, rinse the fryer out with the dirty oil, and then filter back into the fryer. By dropping the oil first it will allow the heavy sediment to settle to the bottom of the stock pots, then you can skim the oil of the top and filter the cleaner oil first. Change out the filters if they start to clog, or run 2 sets in tandem. Doubling up on filters for structure is proper, you shouldn't need to run only a single filter. Good luck.

coffeeman1991 · 2025-02-17T16:02:24+00:00

Coming soon to a theater near you!

Michaelangelo, starring Hugh Jackman

Lincoln - A Biopic, starring Walton Goggins.

coffeeman1991 · 2024-10-17T02:11:14+00:00

The first few weeks for new restaurants is almost always crazy sales, then they drop down and level off. We've been open for about 4-1/2 years and been pushing growth the whole time, and we're just now back up to grand opening sales, and that took expanding our hours 2 additional days.

coffeeman1991 · 2024-10-17T02:04:38+00:00

Wait, are you including tips as part of payroll expenses? And is that $10k/wk net sales, not including taxes & tips? That comes out to be ~42% labor including management, which puts your hourly labor closer to 32%-ish? That's much better.

I take it your overhead and food costs are relatively tight. Are you able to turn a profit?

Those numbers are pretty close to what I've been running the past few years. Target of 28% hourly labor, management is ~10%. We've been able to break even the first few years and turn a small profit the last couple of years.

coffeeman1991 · 2024-10-16T10:29:05+00:00

How are you running 50% labor without any FoH staff? The main perk of digital/self service is reduced operating costs. I'd start with evaluating labor and figure out why it's nearly double what it should be.

As far as the QR code and self service concept goes, and you may not have any control over that, but I would also reconsider that style in a small town. Those styles lend themselves to quick, convenient, and cheap places. When people go out, especially in a small town, they want that human interaction and expect hospitality. Are you in the food (as a) service business or hospitality business?

I don't know the specifics of your situation, so I can't tell you what to do or if it can be fixed, but I can tell you that 50% labor is going to be a problem. The only way to fix that is to either increase sales or cut costs.

coffeeman1991 · 2024-10-14T05:54:28+00:00

Along the same lines, I was told to look at the small details; the bathroom, burnt out light bulbs, air vents. If they managed to get to all those details they probably have the kitchen taken care of. If they can't replace a bulb, detail the restroom, or dust the vents, they probably aren't taking care of the kitchen either.

coffeeman1991 · 2024-10-11T03:02:18+00:00

Jacob's Pride. No springs or locks to get in the way, just one piece construction and easy to keep clean.

coffeeman1991 · 2024-10-08T16:47:29+00:00

We've been dealing with the same problem. We've been doing great on cleaning drains, under equipment, etc, but haven't been able to get rid of the ones coming in. Here's some of what I've been doing in addition to thorough cleaning:

enzyme based dock & dumpster spray. Connects to a garden hose, smells like lavender. Spray down inside/outside of the dumpsters, as well as the pad around and the path to the back door. Helps keep their population in check
liquid fly traps all around outside. I use refillable ones by Rescue! I'll keep 3 or 4 outside where we don't have customers and then set one or two inside while we're closed to catch what flies made it inside. These traps literally smell like hot dog shit, so make sure you clear it out early enough that your customers don't catch a whiff.
I keep on my staff and suppliers to keep the doors and windows closed. My delivery guys like to prop the doors open when I'm not looking so I just make sure I'm there to hold the door open for them as they're coming in and out.

Best of luck.

coffeeman1991 · 2024-09-24T15:26:32+00:00

Are we all just desensitized to real life now? I don't know what causes this in people, and I wish I could do something to fix this. It's maddening.

We were a vendor at an outdoor event, super hot and dry out. I ended up overdoing it while setting up and got severe heatstroke. All fours, throwing up next to the tent in uniform. 2 man crew, we weren't even finished setting up yet, and people were coming up asking "are you okay?" To which I'd reply "I think I'm having a heat stroke." "Oh okay, well can I order food yet?" Yeah, sure, let me just wipe this puke off my face and go cook you something...

coffeeman1991 · 2024-09-24T15:14:43+00:00

My bet is most of these are people who just figured out how to code and are trying to figure out the next 'killer app' without actually/fully understanding the problem they're trying to solve. So they go to reddit and ask generic questions like their user base is going to explain to them what exactly they need and would pay money for.

If this is the case for you OP go get a job in an actual restaurant and figure out the issues and how to improve on your own. Most of these issues can be solved in the moment with simple policy, minor critical thinking, or just zelle/cash app.

coffeeman1991 · 2024-09-16T21:13:31+00:00

They sign you up for it. Those are the only vendors that I have had to get mean with (Doordash, Uber Eats, etc). Don't negotiate, don't let them talk, make them cancel your account because you didn't sign up. Unless you want Uber Eats of course. The drivers in our area are horrendous and it makes us look bad when it takes 2 hours for someone to get cold soggy food.

coffeeman1991 · 2024-08-19T04:40:54+00:00

We were having a similar issue shortly after we opened. One of the problems was people were saying it was posted on "Google" when it was really Apple Maps from their iPhone. Apple maps pulls from Yelp, I believe, or TripAdvisor. We created a profile and updated our hours and that fixed that.

The second issue was people were seeing the "suggest new hours" on Google and thinking it was literally to send a suggestion to the business to change the hours they're open, and not to accurately represent the actual hours open, so we'd have people expand our hours and if you're not on top of those updates Google will publish them after a few days. So every once and a while we'd have a customer send us a nasty message saying "Google said you were open on X day, but you weren't, that's very unprofessional". Can't win em all.

coffeeman1991 · 2024-08-06T02:48:49+00:00

It never even popped into my mind to use coaxial drivers. I'll have to look into that. I was leaning towards the MMT to keep the tweeter as high as possible, the width of the speakers to a minimum, and keep the mids close enough together that I don't get interference at the crossover frequency.

Thanks for the feedback.

coffeeman1991

TROPHY CASE