Hood & Exhaust Cleaning for Ghost Kitchens & Commissaries

A ghost kitchen concentrates everything NFPA 96 worries about into one room. Multiple bays cook simultaneously, menus skew toward fryers, woks, and grills — the heaviest grease producers — and delivery demand keeps hoods running from morning prep to late-night orders. That kind of duty cycle is exactly what the standard's quarterly high-volume tier was written for; see frequency by cooking volume for how the tiers break down.

The building multiplies the risk. Where bays feed shared duct runs, grease from every operator accumulates in ductwork no single tenant can see or reach. A fire that starts over one fryer doesn't stay in that bay — it follows the grease. In a multi-operator facility, one tenant's skipped cleaning is everyone's exposure.

In a shared kitchen, the cleaning obligation is split by the lease: commonly the facility owns the shared ductwork and rooftop fans while each operator owns the hood in their bay. The problem is that fire code doesn't read leases — the inspector wants the whole system cleaned and documented, end to end, and a gap anywhere in the paper trail becomes everyone's problem.

That's why we document by bay. Each operator gets a record covering their own hood and filters; the facility gets a certificate of performance covering the shared runs and fans. Whoever the question lands on — inspector, insurer, or a new tenant's due diligence — each party can produce proof of their piece. If you run the building rather than a bay, our multi-tenant property programs put the whole facility on one managed schedule.

Most ghost kitchens run from morning prep to late-night orders, so there's rarely a convenient window for a full-system clean. We work the gaps your facility actually has — overnight lulls, staggered bay-by-bay scheduling, or coordinated shutdowns for the shared runs — and plan exhaust system cleaning around your operators rather than asking a dozen tenants to go dark at once.

One vendor with one schedule for the whole facility means the shared ductwork never falls between two operators' calendars — and every bay's paperwork stays current at the same time.