Plumbing Service for Multi-Unit Restaurant Groups

When you run several kitchens, the plumbing problems repeat: grease in the lateral, a floor drain that smells, a hand sink that runs cold and a soda-line drain that backs up on a Friday night. The fix is to run every store on the same routine and write it down. That is what we set up.

Kitchens differ, so the routine is a starting point. A cafe with a coffee counter does not need the schedule of a 24-hour diner, but both need the same records and the same phone number.

We jet restaurant laterals from the inside with a small hose, and we jet the main out to the city sewer as a separate job. The inside work happens before opening or after close and takes about one to two hours. Soda and ice-well drains are jetted with a cleaning solution, since they smell before they stop.

For a group, the value is in the log. Each visit goes against the store's account with the date and what we found, so you can see which kitchens need a shorter interval. A store that comes back dirty in two months needs a different plan from one that comes back clean in six. For the method, see hydro jetting and commercial drain cleaning.

Phoenix requires a hydromechanical interceptor to be cleaned every 30 days, with a hard ceiling of 90, and a gravity interceptor at least every 3 months. A licensed pumper cleans the tank. HQ does not pump grease interceptors. After the tank is empty, we inspect and repair the parts inside, such as baffles, tees and standpipes, using a three-person confined-space crew.

For a group, the weak point is the paperwork. Phoenix requires three years of maintenance records on site, including the pumper's invoices, and inspectors come unannounced. Keep one binder or folder per store, with every pump-out receipt and our repair notes in it. Phoenix pump-out schedules walks through the cycle, and grease trap service covers our side.

Three fixtures cause most of the plumbing citations that are not about grease.

Hand sinks. The county wants one about 25 feet from every food and beverage workstation, with a splashguard and a mixing faucet delivering 100 to 110 degrees F. When a hand sink is out of service, a store can fail an inspection on that alone. See what to do when a restaurant hand sink is out of service.

Floor drains. They belong where the crew washes floors and equipment, not inside walk-ins. A drain that smells is often dry or partially blocked, and a camera can tell you which.

Air gaps. Every warewash sink, prep sink, ice machine and soda fountain drain has to end in an air gap above a floor sink, 1 inch minimum and 10 feet of run at most. A drain hose pushed into the floor sink looks fine and fails the county's rule. That is a quick fix on a service call.

A kitchen emergency does not wait for the office. A night dispatcher takes the call, a tech goes out for a real emergency and a supervisor calls the next morning. We dispatch same-day on stoppages: the tech arrives with a cable and a jetter on standby, then we send a hydro-jet proposal for the permanent fix. The details are in after-hours dispatch for facility managers.

Phoenix lists restaurants among the facilities that need backflow protection, and the Valley cities have their own versions with different deadlines. If a store serves carbonated drinks, the county wants a testable reduced-pressure assembly between the supply and the carbonator. We test, repair and replace domestic assemblies and file the results with the city. See soda machine and ice machine backflow and multi-location plumbing service for how city rules differ across a group.

If you have one store, you do not need a group program. A single kitchen needs a pump-out schedule, an annual backflow test and a number to call. If a store keeps having the same stoppage, adding visits is not the answer. A camera inspection, then a repair, is. And if grease is leaving the kitchen because of how it is scraped and drained, fix the habit before the schedule.

Send the store list, the city for each, who approves work and who gets the invoice. We offer 24/7 emergency service, free estimates and an upfront price before any work starts. For the restaurant rules in detail, see restaurant plumbing.