Wholesale cleaning and restroom supplies for restaurants
A restaurant supply list is really two lists that get bought as one. Back of house is a degreasing and sanitising problem measured in gallons; front of house and the restrooms are a paper, soap and liner problem measured in cases. Most operators order both from whoever is closest when something runs out, which is how a single location ends up paying retail across four vendors and still has an empty towel dispenser on a Saturday night.
Bathroom & Rags Supplier consolidates both lists onto one wholesale account with case pricing, one delivery and one invoice, for single restaurants and multi-unit groups across Florida.
What the FDA Food Code actually requires you to stock
Inspection findings in restrooms and at hand sinks are rarely about cleaning effort. They are about a consumable being absent at the moment the inspector looked. The Food Code is specific about what must be present, and several of these are Priority Foundation items rather than lower-weight Core items:
- Soap at every hand sink — liquid, powder or bar, at each handwashing sink or group of two adjacent sinks (§6-301.11, Pf).
- A hand drying provision — individual disposable towels, a continuous towel system, a heated-air dryer, or an air-knife device (§6-301.12, Pf). If you use disposable towels, a waste receptacle at the sink is also required (§6-301.20).
- Toilet tissue at each toilet (§6-302.11, Pf).
- A covered receptacle for sanitary napkins in any toilet room used by females (§5-501.17).
- A handwash reminder sign at every hand sink used by food employees, clearly visible (§6-301.14).
Two operational rules sit alongside the supplies. A handwashing sink must be accessible at all times and may not be used for anything but handwashing (§5-205.11, Pf) — storing a sanitiser bucket or a stack of pans in it is a finding. And the sink used for food prep, warewashing or mop water may not be fitted with the soap and towel setup required at a hand sink (§6-301.13), because it invites employees to wash hands in the wrong place.
The temperature number most supply guides still get wrong
Nearly every article about restaurant hand sinks quotes 100°F. The 2022 FDA Food Code amended §5-202.12(A) to require water at a temperature of at least 29.4°C (85°F) through a mixing valve or combination faucet — down from the 38°C (100°F) in the 2017 edition. The same section requires a self-closing, slow-closing or metering faucet to deliver water for at least 15 seconds without needing to be reactivated, which is what makes a 20-second handwash physically possible at a push-button faucet.
One caveat worth knowing before you argue it with an inspector: the Food Code is a model, and each state adopts an edition on its own timetable. Check which edition your health department currently enforces rather than assuming the newest one applies.
Building a par level that survives a Saturday
Par levels fail in restaurants because they are set against average weeks. Restaurant consumption is not average — it is concentrated into Friday and Saturday, and into whatever season fills your dining room. A workable method:
- Count a full month of real usage in cases, not rolls or bottles. Case is the unit you will actually order in.
- Divide by the number of weeks, then re-weight to your busiest week rather than the mean.
- Multiply by your delivery cadence and add roughly a two-week buffer.
- Round up to whole cases and re-count quarterly. Menu changes and seasonal volume move the number more than operators expect.
Standardising dispensers across locations matters as much as the count. Two locations on two dispenser systems cannot share stock, cannot buy the same refill, and quietly double your carrying cost. Our guide to building a facility supply checklist covers the count method in more detail.
Back of house: what restaurants order most
The kitchen list is short but consumed fast. Degreaser and a sanitiser you can verify with test strips; food-safe disposable gloves in the sizes your line actually wears; bar mops and microfibre for wiping stations, kept in a separate colour from restroom cloths so they never cross; heavy-mil can liners that survive wet kitchen waste without a second bag; and floor-care products rated for quarry tile and grease. The full station-by-station list, with monthly case math for a 120-seat room, is in our restaurant cleaning supply checklist. For sizing liners to your bins, see our can liner sizing and mil guide, and for the concentrate-versus-ready-to-use decision that drives most of your chemical spend, our cost-per-gallon comparison.
Front of house needs less variety and more reliability: hand soap, towel, tissue, air care, glass cleaner, and a restroom cleaner that will not strip grout. That is the list that gets noticed by guests, and it is the list most often bought at retail prices in an emergency.
One account, one invoice, live case pricing
We quote per case at today’s wholesale number rather than publishing stale web prices, and we deliver across South Florida with statewide options. Multi-unit groups run several ship-to addresses under a single account so each restaurant receives its own delivery while billing consolidates into one invoice per cycle, coded by location. Send your product list and monthly volume and we will price it and set the reorder cadence around your delivery days — or open a business account to get started.
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