Restaurant Painting: Kitchen and Dining

A restaurant is two very different rooms under one roof. The kitchen is a hot, wet, greasy workplace that gets scrubbed every night. The dining room is a stage, where the color of the walls under evening light is part of what people are paying for. A repaint has to get both right, and it has to do it around a business that cannot close for long.

Why do restaurant kitchens peel?

Because grease is on every surface, including the ones that look clean. Cooking vapor carries a fine film of fat that settles on walls, ceilings, door frames and the tops of shelving. Paint applied over it has nothing solid to grip, so it lets go in sheets, often within weeks. The fix is not a better paint. It is proper degreasing, a thorough rinse, and enough drying time before anything is applied.

Preparing a commercial kitchen

The kitchen is the hardest part of the job and it sets the schedule. The sequence:

1. Clear and seal. All food, utensils, small wares and anything that touches food comes out or is sealed off. Large equipment that cannot move is wrapped. Prep tables and shelving are covered.
2. Degrease. Walls and ceilings are washed with a degreaser suited to the surface, working from the top down, with extra attention near the cooking line where the film is heaviest.
3. Rinse. Degreaser left on the wall is its own adhesion problem, so it is rinsed off completely.
4. Dry. A kitchen holds humidity, especially around the dish area. Surfaces have to be dry through, not just dry to the touch.
5. Repair. Drywall dents from carts, damaged corners and any soft spots near sinks are fixed now. Water damage behind a dish station is common and worth finding before it is painted over.
6. Prime. Repaired areas, stains and any glossy existing surface get a primer suited to them.
7. Paint. A hard, washable finish, applied in the window when the kitchen is closed.

Some kitchen walls are not painted drywall at all but plastic wall panels. Those panels generally need a specific bonding primer before they will hold paint, and sometimes the honest advice is to clean them rather than coat them. Ebenezer will tell you which applies to your walls.

The hood, the line and the inspector

Painting stops at the edge of the cooking equipment. The hood interior, ductwork and anything near open flame belong to the hood cleaning company and equipment technicians, not the painter. The aim is walls and ceilings around the line that clean up well, not coatings on equipment.

California’s food code requires walls and ceilings in food preparation and storage areas to be durable, smooth, nonabsorbent and cleanable, and your county’s environmental health inspector checks for it. Before choosing finishes, it is worth checking what your inspector expects for your kind of operation. Paint is part of passing an inspection, not a substitute for the materials an inspector may require in wet areas.

Finishes for a kitchen

Kitchens are cleaned with hot water and chemicals every day, they stay humid, and they grow mildew in corners where air does not move. The finish has to stand up to all of that:

• Semi-gloss or a coating built for food service and high humidity on walls, so they can be scrubbed without wearing through.
• A mildew-resistant product in dish areas, walk-in cooler entries and anywhere damp.
• Doors, frames and kick plates in the hardest-wearing finish of all, because they take carts and boots constantly.

Both Dunn-Edwards and Sherwin-Williams make interior coatings for commercial and high-moisture environments. The right product depends on the surface and how the space is cleaned.

The dining room is a different job

Out front, the job is about atmosphere and wear in equal measure.

Color under your lighting. Dining rooms are often lit warm and low in the evening and flooded with daylight at lunch. A color that looks rich at night can look flat at noon, and the reverse. Samples are painted on the actual wall and looked at during both services before the color is chosen.

Sheen. Lower sheens feel softer and hide wall texture under low light, which suits most dining rooms. But walls along booths, banquettes and the path to the kitchen take chair backs, elbows and trays, so those zones are often a washable eggshell or satin.

The chair rail line. In many restaurants there is a clear band of damage at the height where chairs hit the wall. A harder finish there, or a contrasting lower band, saves repainting the whole room for a few scuffs.

Restrooms. Customers judge a restaurant by its restrooms. These take moisture and heavy cleaning, and they are short jobs that fit into a single closed day.

Patios near the water

A restaurant on the bayfront or near the beach in Imperial Beach lives in salt air. Outdoor walls, railings and metal furniture frames on a patio need a freshwater wash to take the salt off, any rust treated and primed, and a coating suited to coastal exposure. Patio work is exterior work and follows the exterior sequence: wash, check for repairs, mask, then paint.

Scheduling around service

Kitchen work belongs on the day or days you are closed, and it is planned so the kitchen is clean, dry and aired out before the first prep shift comes back. The dining room can sometimes be done over a series of late evenings after the last table, one section at a time. Ebenezer works weekends when the project needs it, and the schedule is written down before work starts so your managers can plan around it.

If something unexpected turns up, such as water damage behind the dish station or a wall that needs more repair than it appeared, Ebenezer explains what it is and how it changes the job before going any further.

There is more about planning commercial painting and the process behind it. If you run a restaurant in San Diego, National City or Imperial Beach and the kitchen walls will not stay painted or the dining room no longer matches the food, ask for a free estimate. Ebenezer, C-33 license 1120008, issued to Lemoon’s Painting Inc, will look at both rooms, ask when you can close, and give you a plan.