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More than just a plain drain
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Picture this: Your entire staff has left for the evening. The place rocked. You've had a phenomenal night. Almost strong enough 
to cover tomorrow's payroll- from last week. The bar was packed with women pursued by tequila-chasing-hounds chugging beer as back ups in hope of making emotional headway so they don't have to go home alone.
You turn off all the lights, put the receipts in the drawer, wrap the folded cash in a rubber band, place it in your right hand pocket, finish the last sip of scotch and think to yourself, before you go home to crash you need to visit the men's room.
The smell of stale urine greets you before you can turn on the light. Your first thought: "Why didn't I go next door for a nightcap and us their bathroom?" And as you peer into the puddle of urine on your once highly polished floor- a sampling of processed drinks from the sloppy, splashing, bad aim, over the top, side and edges customers you have been serving all night you realize your new Stefano Castellini's have officially been welcomed with a good old fashioned sole soaking.
The dilemma you face is to clean or not to clean the bathroom floor. If you clean it, you will be pissed all the way home that someone missed that line on the checklist. If you don't clean it, your men's room will broadcast that hovering odor or its medicinal air freshener cover up for the rest of the weekend.
Of course you clean it. Because nothing beats a stunning bathroom in a restaurant. No matter which of the sexes it hosts, a bathroom's appearance and condition either shouts failure or success, real restaurant or just playing restaurant.
One bathroom I was recently using actually had a bar towel on the floor underneath the urinal to catch any over-the-edge splashes, I presume so they wouldn't land on the highly glossed tile floor.
The award, though, for country's greatest bathroom belongs to The Rutherford Grill in Rutherford, California. Soft lighting, a T.V. monitor and other contributions to the ambiance are tremendous. However, what lies directly below the urinal is a bathroom attendant's dream. A retro designed stainless steel insert (pictured above) which slopes towards a drain, along with an equally attractive grill that covers the drain at floor level are the two elements that make this bathroom a delight to use and a pleasure, if there could be, to clean.
As an owner I have cleaned my fair share of bathrooms. Some years back I had a meeting of all my chefs and managers and in a rousing speech laced with vulgarities of varying decibels I informed the group I was disappointed nobody seemed to be working hard enough to prove to me that they wanted my job.
A hand quickly shot up and I asked Tom Fritz, a manager, if he had a question.
"Yes, I do. Why would we want your job? You come in every morning at 6:00 a.m. and clean the bathrooms. We wouldn't do that," he said in a very serious tone.
Fritz was right on both counts. I love to inspect restaurant bathrooms. McSorley's Old Ale House in Manhattan, albeit the oldest saloon in the country has great bathrooms. The ice still hosts a variety of processed drink combinations in the humungous urinals at P.J. Clarkes, setting an atmosphere of chilling retrospect. Not that anyone in a bar ever needs the thought of chill to spurn urination. Salut Bar Americain, portraying the genius of Phil Roberts and a Parasole restaurant concept ,offers framed artwork to make one chuckle while standing at their urinals, each telling a fabricated story about the countrymen of origin.
Yes, the bathroom in any restaurant is the one place that broadcasts your restaurants commitment to hygiene and cleanliness.
So get rid of the puddles. Toss the yellow soaked towels. When thinking of a new restaurant, keep the drain in mind. It may prove to be one of your best investments late at night just before you turn off the light and lock the door.
By the way, I ended up selling Fritz my restaurants. That's another story.
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business ·
restaurant ·
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style ·
bathroom ·
cleanliness ·
hygiene
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