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.
Most operators moving into Miami-Dade are surprised by how prescriptive the grease regime is, and how little discretion there is in it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Programs built around the 90-day ceiling and the 25% trigger, not around whoever answers the phone.
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.
Line, fryers, floors, and front-of-house reset after close — one crew standard across every location in the group, from Brickell to Wynwood to Coral Gables.
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.
Pulling equipment, wall tile, floor drains, walk-in seals — scheduled so high-priority findings do not accumulate into more frequent state visits.
Climate and season do more to a South Florida kitchen than any inspector, and they run on their own calendar.
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.
Coastal air corrodes exhaust fan housings, hinges, and access panels far faster than inland installations. 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.
From roughly December through April, Miami-Dade kitchens run near capacity seven days a week. 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.
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.
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 — and New York City. Practical guides for operators are in our resource library.