Restaurant cleaning in Miami.
Nightly cleaning, kitchen exhaust service, and grease trap programs for multi-location groups across Miami-Dade — run to DERM’s permit requirements and documented for state inspection.
Miami’s grease rules are the strictest part.
Most operators moving into Miami-Dade are surprised by how prescriptive the grease regime is, and how little discretion there is in it.
You need a GDO permit, annually
Miami-Dade Ordinance No. 18-22, codified at Section 24-42.6 of the County Code and effective March 2018, requires every non-residential food service establishment to hold an annual Grease Discharge Operating permit issued by DERM. It is not a one-time setup item — it renews, and operating without a current one is its own violation.
Ninety days is a ceiling, not a guideline
The maximum interval between grease interceptor cleanings is 90 days, regardless of how full the interceptor is. Separately, once grease and solids reach 25% of capacity, cleaning is required — whichever comes first. A busy fry-heavy kitchen commonly hits 25% well inside a month, which means the 90-day rule is often the least demanding of the two.
The hauler has to be licensed by DERM
Cleaning means pumping all wastewater and waste to a truck licensed by DERM to haul and dispose at an approved facility. A cheaper unlicensed pump-out leaves you with no valid manifest, which in practice is the same as never having had the service.
Inspections come from the state, not the county
Restaurants in Florida are inspected by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s Division of Hotels and Restaurants, which separates findings into high-priority violations — those that could contribute directly to foodborne illness or injury — and lesser categories. Inspection frequency is driven by your own history: more high-priority findings means more visits per year.
What we run in Miami.
Programs built around the 90-day ceiling and the 25% trigger, not around whoever answers the phone.
Grease trap programs with manifests retained
Scheduled against both thresholds, using DERM-licensed haulers, with every manifest filed per location. The permit renewal and the service record stop being two separate scrambles.
Nightly cleaning across Miami-Dade
Line, fryers, floors, and front-of-house reset after close — one crew standard across every location in the group, whether it sits in Brickell, Wynwood, the Design District, Coral Gables, or Downtown Doral. A group running a Lincoln Road room alongside a Wynwood room gets the same close-out in both.
Hood and exhaust on cooking volume
Cleaned to NFPA 96 intervals set by what you actually cook, with before/after photos filed per visit. Florida’s humidity makes grease accumulation less forgiving than the interval alone suggests.
Deep cleans and preventive maintenance
Pulling equipment, wall tile, floor drains, walk-in seals — scheduled so high-priority findings do not accumulate into more frequent state visits.
Why Miami jobs run differently.
Climate and season do more to a South Florida kitchen than any inspector, and they run on their own calendar.
Humidity changes how grease behaves
Warm, wet air keeps grease softer and more mobile than it stays in a dry climate. It migrates further along duct runs and re-deposits in places a quarterly schedule assumes are clean. Interval alone is a poor proxy for condition here, which is why we photograph duct interiors rather than just logging a date.
Salt air eats rooftop equipment
Coastal air corrodes exhaust fan housings, hinges, and access panels far faster than inland installations — a rooftop in South Beach, Sunny Isles, or Key Biscayne ages on a different curve than the same unit in Doral, Hialeah, or Medley a few miles west. Fasteners seize, hinge kits fail, and a fan that cannot be opened cannot be cleaned. We flag corrosion during cleaning visits, because the failure that closes a kitchen is mechanical long before it is regulatory.
High season leaves no slow night
From roughly December through April, Miami-Dade kitchens run near capacity seven days a week — and the spikes stack on top of that. Art Basel week around the Miami Beach Convention Center, the boat show, and weekend cruise turnarounds at PortMiami each pull a surge into a specific few blocks. The slow Tuesday a deep clean would normally use does not exist. Work gets sequenced into overnight blocks across a group, so no single location loses covers.
Hurricane season needs both ends covered
Closing ahead of a storm and reopening after one are two different jobs: securing rooftop equipment and clearing traps beforehand, then a full reopening clean afterward with attention to standing water, walk-in seals, and drain lines. Groups that plan only the shutdown lose days on the reopen.
Let us walk your Miami locations.
Miami-Dade cross-references service records against permits. Every visit we make is photographed and filed by location, and every pump-out keeps its manifest — so the paperwork exists before an inspector asks.
Also serving Los Angeles County — our largest market — plus New York City and Dallas. Practical guides for operators are in our resource library.