Restaurants use a lot of water. Between cooking, washing dishes, cleaning up, and serving guests, your water bill takes a good chunk out of your monthly budget on a consistent basis. Water conservation is also a big concern of a majority of your customers, especially if you operate in dry western states like California, Arizona, or Colorado.
Effective water conservation in your restaurant is a lot easier than you might think. It’s also a pretty easy way to gain serious street cred with your customers while also adding green to your bottom line. The nice thing about water conservation is that it takes minimal investment to realize some pretty serious savings.
Serve drinking water on demand only. Don’t just assume your guests want water, and definitely don’t give them bottled water! Not only is bottled water a needless expense - all that plastic is also a landfill nightmare. If you don’t serve water automatically, train your wait staff to let customers know they can have water free of charge at any time (after they get the drink order of course!). And if you’re serving water, don’t just pull it from the tap. Use a filtered glass filler to guarantee taste and water quality.
Fix leaky faucets. That little dribble coming out of the commercial faucets in your kitchen probably doesn't seem like a big deal, especially since you’re probably working hellish hours as it is. But looks can fool you. That dribble can add up to thousands of gallons of water each month, and if it’s the hot side of the faucet that’s leaking, that’s hundreds of dollars in energy bills going down the drain as well. Faucet parts are easy to replace and extremely inexpensive. There’s really no excuse for letting those dollars leak down the drain.
Low flow pre-rinse spray valve. A low flow spray valve can slash your water usage at one of its most wasteful points. The best part is, newer low flow spray valves are just as effective at cleaning dishes but they use water at half the rate. Get some real bang for your buck and still clean dishes effectively!
Wash full racks only. This is a headsmacker tip. The danger is in assuming your kitchen staff is following this rule religiously, because chances are they’re not. Employ a constant education and enforcement program to make sure only full dish racks get put through your commercial dishwasher. Even conserving a small amount of dishwasher water translates into big savings for you because that hot water is twice as expensive after you pay to heat it up.
Retrofit kitchen and bathroom sinks. Aerators make both bathroom and kitchen faucets use less water and are easy to install. In the kitchen, install a three compartment sink for washing dishes because the scrape, wash, rinse technique is much more efficient than doing it all in one compartment under a constantly running stream of water. In the bathroom, install automatic faucets that shut off when not in use and retrofit old toilets and urinals with newer, more efficient ones.
After you’ve put all the time into using the above tips to make your restaurant one lean, green, water-saving machine, make sure you tell your customers all about it!
You’ve worked hard to cut water usage, and perhaps the biggest reward you deserve is appreciation and increased loyalty from your customers. Incorporate your efforts into your marketing campaigns. It’ll surprise you just how effective a green message is in improving your name in the eyes of customers.