Keeping Pests Out of a Restaurant

Dead cockroach on a restaurant linen

A pest infestation is pretty much every restaurant owner’s worst nightmare, and it’s not hard to understand why. Running a restaurant is an unbelievable amount of work. It combines all the trials and tribulations of running a business, and adds food preparation and customer service besides. Imagine losing all that blood, sweat, and tears because of a bug!

Unfortunately, pest infestations are one nightmare that’s all-too-real. All kinds of pests are especially attracted to restaurants. They’ll do whatever it takes to get at the food and shelter waiting for them inside. Keeping them out is just one more important job a restaurant has to do. Luckily, it’s not as hard as you’d think–and certainly not as hard as many other aspects of restaurant management. By keeping these four tips in mind, you’ll go a long way toward keeping your restaurant pest-free:

Watch the Garbage

manage your restaurant's garbage carefullyGarbage management is probably the single most important way restaurants can prevent pest infestations. Restaurants have more garbage to worry about than just about anywhere else. Not only do you have your kitchen’s garbage, but you have to manage your customer’s, as well. When food spoils, the smell and liquids it produces attract pests like nothing else. Flies, moths, roaches, and even rodents all flock to the smells of rotting food.

Making sure pests can’t smell rotting or spoiled food is your top priority. Pay careful attention to where all your garbage ends up. All solid garbage (food, containers, etc.) should go into sealable, airtight plastic bags. Throw these bags out at least once a day, and ideally twice. Be especially careful with liquid waste, such as grease. Never pour grease into drains or let it collect in the garbage. Rinse out all garbage bins and dumpsters at least once a month.

Clean the Drains

Clean your restaurant's drains regularlyIt’s all-too-easy to depend on your drains, especially in the hectic restaurant world. You just pour the whatever-it-is down the drain and move on to your next task. The whatever-it-is is gone, and you can keep working! It’s perfect, right? Unfortunately, that’s not really how it works. The stuff you pour down the drain often stays in the drain, where it can rot, congeal, or build up. Before long, you could have a nasty clog–or worse.

All the gunk that builds up in your drain does just cause clogs, either. It can also provide a suitable and consistent source of food for pests. Drain flies and all kinds of other frustrating pests are attracted to drain gunk of all kinds. Some types of drain fly even lay eggs inside or near drains, which makes them a long-term problem. You should have your drains professionally cleaned once a season, or whenever you notice a problem.

Mind the Gaps

Make sure your restaurant's entrances seal properlyUnfortunately, this is another situation where restaurants are at a disadvantage. Think about how many doors and windows your restaurant has. There’s the front entrance for sure, a back entrance, probably a supply entrance, any emergency exits, and more. Pests can use these entrances, too. Then there are the restaurant-specific access points to worry about. Pests can come down ventilation just as easily as smoke and food smells can escape.

Try to figure out where pests could get in. Start by examining thresholds. Make sure all your doors seal properly and snugly. Replace any damaged sealant or weatherstripping immediately. Look for cracks and gaps near window and door frames, and feel for drafts. Remember: some bugs only need the tiniest gap to get in, so you have to be thorough. Check the perimeter from the outside and the inside. Use caulk to fill in gaps. Make sure all your vent systems have appropriate grating and screens.

Clean Spills

Keep an eye out for hidden spills or leaks in your restaurantThis probably seems obvious to you, but spills can be tricky. We’re not just talking about the ones out on the dining floor. We’re talking about the spills that can go overlooked. The tiny leaks in the employee bathroom. The condensation pooling in the corner of the freezer or outside by the HVAC. The grease ring around the floor drain in the kitchen. Pests don’t need much moisture to survive, and they’ll use whatever you give them.

Liquid spills are a particularly big deal for pests, because many bugs lay eggs in liquid. If you think a fly infestation is tough to deal with now, try a multi-generation infestation. To prevent a nightmare like that, you have to become a spill-eliminating machine. Figure out where moisture tends to build up and dry it out as frequently and completely as possible. Keep an especially close eye on customer’s sugary drinks.

 

Running any business is tough work, but running a restaurant is a whole new level. If you’ve made it this far, there’s no way a few pests are going to be your downfall. As long as you and your team follow these tips and work together, you’ll keep the pests at bay.

If ever things are getting out of hand and you need a little help, you can always call Griffin. We’re always ready to help you reclaim your business as effectively and discretely as possible. Keep fighting the good fight!

Meet Joshua “The Bug Man” Reed, Your Pest Control Professional

Dragons and werewolves may not exist, but monsters do–we call them pests. What could be more monstrous than a creepy animal perfectly evolved to infiltrate your home and feed on your blood?! Even vampires can’t do that! If the monsters of real life are pests, the dragon slayers of legend would be pest control professionals.

But who are these monster hunters? How did they come to possess their deadly talents? To find out, we talked to one of our very own slayers: Joshua Reed is a Associated Certified Entomologist (ACE) and has worked at Griffin Pest Solutions since 2012. Here’s Joshua on how he came to be “the Bug Man,” the worst pest calls he’s ever taken, and which bugs still freak him out.

Note: this interview has been edited and condensed.

Griffin: How did you become an Associate Certified Entomologist?

Joshua: Getting to be a certified ACE is kind of a long process. First, you have to be a licensed pest control professional with five years of experience. Then, you undergo standardized professional training, which Griffin provided for me. I worked alongside other professionals and Michigan state-approved tutors to learn on the job and did a lot of reading and studying.

After you’re trained, you take the ACE certification exam. I’m certified in commercial pesticide application, so I had to take a sub-exam along with the general exam [Joshua’s taken exams for certification categories 7A: general pest management, and 7B: wood destroying pests]. It’s a pretty hard test; I guess something like 90% of applicants don’t pass the first time.

Joshua Reed's Associate Certified Entomologist License
And?

Oh, well… yeah, I passed the first time. I didn’t want to sound like a braggadocio. I’ve always been fascinated by bugs. When I was a kid, I would find weird bugs and want to know what it was. I’d have to look through books and it was tough to find any info. I think that’s why I passed the test. When I was studying for it, it was like I was answering my own questions.

Was that interest why you wanted to become an entomologist?

Kind of! Honestly, I sort of found this job by accident. My background is in construction work and heating and cooling repair. When the economy crashed a few years back, I looked for heating and cooling jobs, but I wasn’t having any luck.

I thought about going back to construction work, but my dad and other family members worked in construction too. They told me about the physical toll it can take on your body, so I was a little worried about that. Around then, I happened to see Griffin was hiring. I figured it sounded like a way to get back into learning about bugs again, so I applied.

ACE's like Joshua use glueboards like these to trap and monitor pest infestations
Pictured: a “glue board”, one of the tools Joshua frequently uses to find and remove pests.

What’s a typical day on the job look like for you?

I have a lot of regular commercial accounts, like food processing companies that need to meet strict FDA safety regulations. I do a lot of facility inspections. For those, I monitor the devices I’ve installed to make sure nothing’s getting into their product, check vulnerable areas… stuff like that.

If I find a pest, then I identify what it is, how it got in, and how we can make sure it doesn’t get in again. It’s kind of like being a pest detective. You have to be really thorough, too, so it can feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I’ve monitored facilities with 1,200-plus devices before!

That’s a big haystack.

A really big haystack!

What about residential calls?

I do plenty of those too. They’re really rewarding. People get understandably freaked out by spiders, moths, rodents, or whatever, and it feels good to help them feel better. I just like talking to people, too.

Pest control professional introducing himself to a home owner
What do you wish more people understood about pest control?

It’s a gradual process. Sometimes people expect immediate results, but that’s just not how it works. To truly end a pest problem, a technician has to break the life cycle of the infestation. We like to say, ‘We might look like we’re waving around wands, but we’re not doing magic.’ It’s just biology at work–and it might take weeks, not hours or days.

The other big thing is, I wish more people understood that pest control is a team effort. When we make suggestions as to exclusionary or sanitary precautions, we’re not judging. We just really want to make sure your pest problem goes away and stays gone.

What are some of those recommendations?

Exclusionary tactics. Keeping pests out of a structure in the first place is what everyone really wants. My best advice would be to make sure nothing touches the outside of your home. Keep the area around the perimeter clear for at least 18 inches. Remove hanging tree branches, bushes, stuff like that.

Oh, and don’t use mulch near your home. Mulch is great for plants, but it also attracts bugs like crazy. Try to keep the area around your home as dry as possible. Pests need shelter, water, and food to live, like anything else. Take those away, and they won’t be able to live around your house.

WARNING: Scary pest stories beneath this nice, non-threatening bee

Nice, non-threatening bee that hides the scary stuff from you
Buzz! I’m the content warning bee! Don’t read on if you’re grossed out easily! Buzz!

We have to ask: do you have any pest horror stories?

Early in my career, we went to a trailer park to deal with a roach problem. This trailer was going through something we call a “rainer.” “Rainers” happen when there are so many cockroaches crammed into a space that they don’t have anywhere to hide. They literally burst out of the woodwork, climbing on top of each other, crawling along the walls, and raining from the ceiling…

There was a little girl living in this particular home, and she was excited to see me. She asked me if I was “the Bug Man”–when you’re in pest control everyone calls you “the Bug Man”–and I noticed she had sores on her face. That’s when I learned that, when too many cockroaches live in too small a space, they run out of things to eat. That’s when they get aggressive, and feed on hair follicles and food remains left on people.

Oh.

Yeah, it was really disturbing. It was an important call for me, though, because that’s when I “got” pest control. I could see I was doing something important and helping people.

Does being a pro make you immune to the heebie-jeebies? Or do pests still freak you out?

There’s definitely a level of desensitization that comes with the job. The longer I do it, the less pests freak me out. There are still some, though… When I was really young, I was fishing at my grandpa’s pond and I stepped on a yellowjacket nest under the dock. A bunch of the yellowjackets flew up my pants and stung the holy crap outta me.

wasp nest
Pictured: Wasp nest

Yikes!

Yeah. My fear of bees was probably the hardest thing to overcome during training. I can work with bees now–you just need to learn to trust the bee suit–but I definitely understand people’s fear.

Anything else freak you out?

I don’t like crawl spaces very much. You’re down there crawling through spider webs and trying not to think about it, but part of you knows there’s spiders all over you. It’s ironic–I’ve been down in crawl spaces for work since before I was a pest control person, and they still get to me. Some of my co-workers aren’t bothered by them at all, though.

This is a house centipede. They are bad.
Realizing this interviewer would have to find a picture like this was the hardest part of this interview.

What about house centipedes? This interviewer…. doesn’t like house centipedes.

Oh yeah, with the really long legs? Those things look like something straight out of a horror movie. I totally get that. Especially if there’s one on you…

Ok thanks bye now!

 

Joshua “The Bug Man” Reed’s professionalism, expertise, and conscientiousness embody the kind of legendary service you can expect from start to finish when you call Griffin Pest Solutions.

If you have a pest problem–whether it’s residential or commercial, large or small, “rainer” or house centipede–let us know right away. We’ll slay that dragon, no sweat.