Dishwashing vs. hand washing

What are peoples opinions on dishwashers? Currently doing cups and saucers by hand at the bar, which causes issues with staff as everyone hates doing it but realistically it’s a pretty quick way of doing things… With limited space I can probably fit a small machine in but not sure what the deal is with glasswashers and dishwashers? What is best for cleaning coffee cups and will it really save us time/free up staff that much?

Wash the cups and plates by hand, and then run it through the sanitiser. washing things purely by hand even with soaps doesn’t eliminate bacteria and I think it might even be breaking EHO law, having a dishwasher/sanitiser that uses steam to kill off any remaining bacteria is what’s required I think.

It’s important to tell your staff that they MUST wash the cups and plates and cutlery by hand to remove sauces/stains/food and then put them into the sanitiser. If you go straight to the sanitiser without removing debris you don’t sterilise anything and you just add dirt to the machine

1 Like

I’m in the same boat. We are changing things a bit and just decided to switch over to getting a dishwasher (although we can’t lose the 3-compartment sink). The staff hates us for all the hand washing, and there’s probably an good argument for labor costs vs. machine cost.
We are getting a high-temp one to cut down on the chemicals and I’ve heard they tend to clean better.

Anyhow let me know if you did it and things went well. If not, I’ll let you know in about 6 weeks how the transition went.

I grew up in a shop where we hand washed everything and the put everything in sanitizer. I opened up a shop a couple years ago and we have used a high temp dishwasher the whole time. I HIGHLY recommend the dishwasher. You will save an incredible amount of money on labor over the course of years because instead of a barista taking 10 minutes to wash 40 cups, now the barista can take 1 minute to wash 40 cups. It also helps ensure consistency of cleanliness, even when your shop is super busy.

1 Like