Health & Safety Checklist for Pubs & Restaurants (2026)

Health and safety in a busy pub or restaurant is easy to say and hard to prove. The rules are broad, the day is fast, and the moment an Environmental Health Officer (EHO) walks in you need to show — not just claim — that the checks got done. A simple, repeatable checklist is how good venues stay on top of it. Here is one you can use, grouped by area, covering the daily running of the venue and what an inspector looks for.

It applies to pubs, bars, cafés and restaurants across the UK. Treat it as a starting point and adapt it to your premises, menu and risk assessment.

Daily opening & closing checks

The checks that keep the venue safe every single day — do them on open and on close:

• Opening: fridges and freezers at the right temperature, hot-holding equipment up to temperature, walkways and fire exits clear, spills and hazards dealt with, first-aid kit stocked.
• During service: probe-check and record food temperatures, keep cleaning as you go, deal with spills immediately, monitor allergen handling.
• Closing: equipment switched off or set correctly, gas and electrical appliances safe, cleaning completed and logged, waste removed, doors and exits secured.

Food safety & hygiene

The biggest single area an EHO will scrutinise — and what drives your Food Hygiene Rating:

• Temperature control — fridges at or below 5°C, freezers at or below -18°C, hot food held above 63°C; record checks, don’t just do them.
• Allergens — accurate allergen information for every dish, kept up to date, with staff trained to answer confidently and avoid cross-contamination.
• Cleaning schedules — a written schedule covering what gets cleaned, how often and by whom, with sign-off that it happened.
• Stock and storage — date labelling, stock rotation (FIFO), raw and ready-to-eat kept apart, deliveries checked on arrival.
• HACCP / Safer Food, Better Business — your food safety management records kept current and completed daily, not back-filled.

Fire safety & equipment

• Fire risk assessment — current, written, and acted on; reviewed when anything material changes.
• Detection and escape — alarms and emergency lighting tested on schedule, escape routes and fire doors clear and unobstructed, signage visible.
• Extinguishers and equipment — in date, in place, and staff know which to use.
• Gas and electrical — gas safety checks by a Gas Safe engineer, portable appliances tested, records kept.

Staff training & records

• Food hygiene training — everyone handling food trained to the right level, with certificates on file and refreshers tracked.
• Health & safety induction — new starters inducted before their first shift; evidence kept.
• Written policy — businesses with five or more employees must have a written health & safety policy, available to staff.
• Certificates and renewals — training, first aid, personal licences and the like tracked so nothing lapses unnoticed.
• Accident and incident log — a record kept and reviewed; reportable incidents handled under RIDDOR.

EHO & unannounced inspection readiness

EHO inspections are usually unannounced — the whole point is to see the venue on a normal day. You can’t predict the visit, so the only real preparation is being ready every day. An inspector will typically want to see:

• Your food safety management records (SFBB/HACCP), completed and current.
• Temperature logs and cleaning schedules, signed off.
• Your risk assessments and written health & safety policy.
• Evidence of staff training.
• The premises themselves — clean, well-maintained, with good practice visible in the kitchen.

The venues that sail through are not the ones that scramble the night before. They are the ones whose records are a by-product of doing the checks properly, every day.

Health & safety laws for pubs & restaurants

A handful of core duties sit under all of the above. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 sets the general duty to keep staff and customers safe. The Food Safety Act 1990 and the food hygiene regulations govern how you handle food. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires a fire risk assessment. And if you employ five or more people, you must have a written health & safety policy. You don’t need to be a lawyer — but you do need a system that keeps the evidence these laws expect.

From paper to digital

Most venues already know what to check. Where it falls down is the paper: clipboards that go missing, a wall chart nobody filled in on a rushed Saturday, records you can’t find when the EHO is standing in your kitchen. "We definitely did it" is not evidence — a signed, time-stamped record is.

This is exactly what Hopsy is built for. Digital checklists turn the opening, closing and cleaning routines above into quick phone-based tasks your team can’t lose. Food safety app keeps your temperature logs, allergen info and SFBB records digital and inspection-ready. Compliance management gives you one live view of what’s done and what’s overdue across every site, with an audit trail you can show on the spot. And certificate tracking keeps staff training and renewals from quietly lapsing.

Run these checks on paper and health & safety is a constant low-level worry. Run them digitally and it becomes the path of least resistance — done, logged, and provable the moment anyone asks.