Restaurant Linen Services vs. In-House Restaurant Laundry

The quality of service, atmosphere, and cleanliness of a restaurant leave a big impression on customers. They might seem like minor details, but restaurant linens are important. Linen napkins must be properly laundered, but purchasing your own linens and managing a laundering facility come with challenges such as:

  • High inventory and overhead costs
  • Replacement and restocking
  • Time spent washing/drying/folding high volumes of linens
linen napkins

Unfortunately, there is no short cut; having high-quality linens represents one of the best practices in restaurant operations. If your linens are dirty, patrons will think your whole restaurant, including the kitchen, is unclean. Whether you own a restaurant, bar, or coffee shop, a restaurant linen service can:

Leave a Good Impression on Customers

A professional laundering service will ensure your restaurant linens are always clean and fresh. Consistency will provide a customer experience that leaves patrons likely to want to come back. The service provider’s business is built on cleaning linens, so you can be assured of high-quality results. Linen services also track inventory. You’ll, therefore, always have the supply of linens you need.

Avoid Stress

If you own a business, there are so many other things you could be doing. In-house laundering requires extra staff working extra hours, setting a schedule, and creating a way to keep track of all your linens. Your staff needs to be trained to clean linens to specific hygienic standards and to remove stains when necessary. There’s also a great deal of time spent washing, drying, folding, and storing your linen inventory. When the process is over, it starts all over again.

Reduce Operating Costs

Purchasing hundreds of restaurant napkins, kitchen towels, and aprons is expensive. So is replacing them. Quality is important but comes at an extra price. Also, consider the cost of hiring people to do your laundry, paying staff for extra hours, and procuring laundering equipment and maintaining it. Every time your laundering equipment needs repairs, you must pay for parts and labor, and this can add up.

Improve Cleanliness

fine dining restaurant table

The expertise of a laundering service will ensure the most sanitary practices go into cleaning your linens. Not only will they be stain-free, but the service company will maintain its equipment regularly to ensure there is no contamination by viruses, bacteria, or particulates that can trigger allergies or other problems.

Renting restaurant linens ensures peace of mind but also covers repairs and replacements. If you can’t get a stain out of a towel, you’ll have to replace it. If a towel or napkin is ripped or damaged, it must be replaced. A laundering service will replace it for you if this happens, further cutting costs and headaches. Best of all? You save money by not having to pay for the staff and infrastructure to do the hard work.

For restaurant towels and napkins, you can rely on Prudential Overall Supply. We also offer restaurant and hospitality uniforms including chef coats, cook shirts, bistro aprons, and more. Complete our Laundry Needs Assessment or call us at 800-767-5536 for more details.