Restaurant Opening and Closing Checklist (Free Template)

A practical opening and closing checklist for a restaurant, split by who actually does each task, plus the cash and stock checks that catch problems before they become losses.

A restaurant that runs the same way every morning and every night has fewer surprises during service, not because the checklist itself is magic, but because it stops the same small things from being forgotten under pressure. Here is a practical opening and closing routine, split by who actually does each part, since "the manager does everything" is usually how half of it stops happening.

Opening checklist

• Kitchen: check yesterday's prep against today's expected covers, note anything that ran low overnight, confirm walk-in and fridge temperatures, and start today's prep list (see the prep list guide below — this is the single biggest opening task for most kitchens).
• Front of house: check the float in the cash drawer against what it should be, confirm the printer and any card/UPI terminal are working, wipe down and set tables, and check yesterday's unresolved issues (a guest complaint, an unpaid tab, a held table) before the doors open.
• Stock: a quick visual check of anything that ran close to zero yesterday, so a supplier call can happen before service starts rather than mid-lunch.
• Manager/owner: review today's bookings if you take them, check who's rostered against who's actually clocked in, and confirm nothing from last night's close (a discrepancy, a maintenance issue) is still open.

Closing checklist

• Kitchen: log any wastage from the day with a reason (spoilage, over-prep, a comp) rather than letting it disappear into "shrinkage", note what's genuinely out for tomorrow's prep list, and do the fridge/freezer/cleaning routine your local food-safety rules require.
• Front of house: settle every open table and tab — nothing should be left running overnight — and make sure every payment method is actually accounted for, not just cash.
• Cash drawer close: count the drawer against what the till says it should hold, log the variance (over or short), and record it rather than adjusting the number to make it match. A small daily variance is normal; a pattern of variance in the same direction, on the same shift, is the thing worth noticing.
• Manager/owner: a quick look at the day's numbers — sales, any big discounts or voids, whether anything unusual happened — while it's still fresh, rather than reconstructing it from memory a week later.

Why the split matters more than the list

Most restaurants already have some version of this list, usually on a laminated sheet nobody quite follows. What actually makes it work is each role only ever seeing their own part of it — the kitchen isn't scrolling past cash-drawer instructions to find their prep task, and a new waiter doesn't need explaining what the kitchen's checklist means. A single long list that says "everyone" ends up being nobody's job in particular.

Where EasyBills fits

EasyBills shows each role its own daily task list when they sign in — kitchen sees prep and stock items, front of house sees theirs, and a manager sees the whole picture — rather than one shared checklist everyone has to mentally filter. Cash drawer close is built in with a denomination count against expected takings, logged and reviewable later, and stock items that ran low get flagged automatically rather than relying on someone remembering to check.