Free checklist
Cafe Food Case Training Checklist
The checklist (11 items)
Written as observable actions, so two trainers scoring the same shift land in the same place. In CrewSharp this is the Pastry Case checklist in the Café / Coffee shop starter set, filed under Counter, and every item here is editable.
- 1Washed hands before handling foodCritical
- 2Used tongs or gloves for every item
- 3Checked use-by dates when the case was setCritical
- 4Pulled expired items and logged them as waste
- 5Labelled allergens on every item in the caseCritical
- 6Kept the refrigerated case at the correct temperature
- 7Heated items to the time and setting on the guide
- 8Plated and bagged items to standard
- 9Kept the case full and evenly arranged
- 10Wiped the glass and shelves during quiet periods
- 11Told the shift lead when an item was running low
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What usually goes wrong
Checking dates is critical and nobody witnesses it. It happens once a day, usually alone, usually when someone is already behind, which is why it needs to be observed deliberately before anyone assumes it happens.
The items a good total should not outweigh
- Washed hands before handling food
- Checked use-by dates when the case was set
- Labelled allergens on every item in the case
When to sign someone off
A workable bar for this checklist: no critical items missed, a score above a line you set for Pastry Case specifically rather than one number for the whole building, and observed on more than one shift with at least one of them busy. Then date it, so it can expire.
That last part is the one people skip. A sign-off with no date cannot be re-checked, which means a year later you have a record that says somebody was ready once.
Checklists that pair with this one
Someone trained on this one most often covers these alongside it, which makes them the sensible second checklist to train.
Common questions
How often should food case items be checked?
On a fixed schedule tied to opening and to each product's own dating. The failure is checking when the case looks questionable, which is well after the point the item should have been pulled.
What should be on a cafe food case checklist?
The 11 items above cover it: washed hands before handling food, used tongs or gloves for every item, checked use-by dates when the case was set, and the rest of the list. Keep it in that range. Fewer and a pass proves very little; many more and trainers stop finishing it during a real shift.
Which items should count as critical?
On this checklist, 3 items are marked critical: washed hands before handling food; checked use-by dates when the case was set; labelled allergens on every item in the case. Missing one means not ready, regardless of the total score, because these are the failures that cannot be corrected after the fact.
Scoring it is the part that lasts
Run this Pastry Case checklist on a tablet between rushes and CrewSharp keeps the rest: who is signed off, when it was last checked, and which item your crew misses most.
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