Hotpot restaurant kitchen helper - closing cleanup checklist: red oil never meets the drain, raw and produce sinks stay separate, tomorrow's soaking starts tonight

You are the back-of-house lead at a hotpot restaurant.
Write "closing cleanup" as a checklist posted at the
kitchen exit, steps in true closing order, each with an
acceptance test, sign-off line at the bottom. Built for
kitchen helpers to walk daily, team lead to countersign.

Five steps (fixed order):

Step 1: Clear (haul and sort)
- Pot red oil and sediment: solids through the strainer
  bin, oil-broth into the waste-oil drum, never down
  the drain - before pouring, ask yourself "who pays
  for this pipe"
- Compost bin: fresh liner, lidded, rolled to its
  station
- Pass: no broth waiting in any sink, waste-oil drum
  lidded

Step 2: Wash (separate sinks, separate zones)
- Three-sink split, written in stone: raw-meat sink /
  produce sink / tool sink, never crossed at any hour -
  labels posted above each
- Cutting boards washed and returned by color code;
  the check is caliper-style - run a fingertip along
  every crack in the board; nothing digs out means it
  passes
- Knives washed into the sanitizer cabinet or the
  knife rack, never left poolside
- Pass: a clean glove (or fresh napkin) wiped across
  board face and blade comes away without grease or
  smell

Step 3: Sanitize (surfaces and equipment)
- Work tables: detergent and hot water, then clean
  water, then sanitizer - three passes, in order, no
  merging
- Hood filter screens: scrape the grease daily, deep
  strip-wash weekly (the weekly rota posted on the
  filter cabinet door)
- Pots returned from the floor: washed inside and out -
  a scorched pot bottom is tomorrow's hygiene hazard
  too
- Pass: hand slides on the table with no oil film;
  scraped filters hold no dripping grease

Step 4: Prep (for tomorrow)
- Tomorrow's soaking: wood ear, glass noodles, dried
  mushrooms per projected usage, in water before
  lights-out, container labeled with item and start
  time
- Tomorrow's thawing: against the rota and projections,
  frozen goods moved to the walk-in (on the thawing
  SOP's timetable)
- Pass: every soaking container carries a label and a
  time; the thaw shelf matches the timetable

Step 5: Verify (floors and finish)
- Floor: mopped free of grease, with the two standing
  zones - front of the range, front of the sinks -
  getting extra passes; wet-floor sign stays until dry
- Trash: everything hauled out; no bin overnights
  indoors
- Freezer gaskets seated, lights off, taps tight
- Team lead countersign: check items against this list
  one by one; anomalies go in the notes field - an
  empty notes field is not a countersign

Universal rules:
- Total closing targets [S] minutes (variable, per
  house scheduling)
- Waste-oil disposal in Step 1 is the red line: a drain
  clogged by red oil costs far more in repair and lost
  days than the extra steps ever cost
- A failed acceptance test reworks that step only,
  not the whole close

Output format: one section per step, checkbox items, a
bold "pass" line closing each step; sign-off, date, and
notes fields at the bottom.

Why it is written this way

The special weight of a hotpot close is the red oil: one dinner service produces volumes of waste oil and sediment far beyond ordinary catering, and it has exactly two destinations - the waste-oil drum, or the drain. The second is silent today and deafening tomorrow (clog, back-smell, pests), and by then nobody can say who poured it. That's why "clear" leads the list with waste oil flagged as the red line, ahead of all washing: while broth waits in the sinks, nothing downstream can be done properly.

The three-sink split and the "fingertip along the crack" probe exist to give "it's washed" - the most faked phrase in any kitchen - a physical test. Closing shortcuts never happen on the visible surfaces (everyone wipes a tabletop); they hide in seams and undersides: board cracks, filter grease, scorched pot bottoms - and wherever the acceptance test doesn't name a concrete probe, the checkbox becomes ceremony. Every check here runs in under ten seconds by design: the moment verification gets cumbersome, "looks fine" replaces it.

"Prep" standing as its own step is what most separates this from a generic closing sheet. Most checklists only restore the room to zero; they don't pave tomorrow's road - but a hotpot morning opens with soaking and thawing, and both clocks must be settled the night before. Soaking the wood ear, moving the rolls to the walk-in on schedule: two five-minute decisions that set tomorrow's first-ticket speed and the whole day's thaw quality. The last step of closing isn't "lights off" - it's "leave tomorrow's self enough time".

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