Preventing Slip-and-Fall Accidents in Restaurants

According to the National Floor Safety Institute, on average about one million slip-and-fall accidents occur in guest areas of a restaurant each year and more than three times as many happen in the kitchen work area.

In order to prevent these slip-and-fall accidents in the kitchen and place matting in the problem areas, the causes need to be examined. The most common is moisture on the floor, floor tiles, kitchens being small and busy, and rental mats.

Liquid and food spills are frequently found on kitchen floors as well as grease and oil. A mat such as Safewalk-Light Terra Cotta, would provide traction and allow for water, grease, chemicals, and animal fats to drain, reducing the risk of a slip-and-fall.

Quarry tiles are commonly installed in commercial kitchens. These floors have a smooth, nonporous surface that can be cleaned quickly. However, they can also become very slippery when wet. Safewalk and or Safewalk Light would prevent the floor from being too slippery and allow for the floor to have traction.

Restaurants make their money in the dining room. To accommodate more patrons, space is sometimes taken from the kitchen to make the dining rooms larger, limiting kitchen space. Freezers and large coolers are often placed outside to accommodate the small space. Traffic into these areas could cause potential hazards.  Safe-Flow Plus would offer maximum resistance to this traffic.

Rental mats are usually not effective in preventing slip-and-fall accidents in commercial kitchens. They are often not thick enough to capture and trap moisture and soils. Restaurant owners tend to select them because they are picked up regularly and replaced with new, fresh mats. The restaurant staff is already cleaning the mats, so this does not become cost effective. The rental mats are not designed to be used in a commercial kitchen. Installing the wrong mats creates a potentially hazardous situation for restaurant workers.

To eliminate this hazard, food service mats that are explicitly designed for use in a commercial kitchen should be purchased from a supplier like Crown Matting Technologies. They have an extensive mat line for food service needs for the kitchen to support culinary and service crews, front of house staff, the hostess stands, and behind the bar and server areas.