How do bar and restaurant floors manage to sparkle after the heavy footfall, grease, food and drink spills? Let’s find out the secret behind their everlasting gloss!

The UAE has no dearth of posh restaurants – gleaming from ceiling to floor with well maintained, polished surfaces and a pleasant fragrance. Rarely would visitors pay much attention to the marble or polished woodwork. But, one spill, one sticky surface and visitors are quick to form an impression. As a result, hospitality chains and set ups take extreme care in ensuring that their floors are kept well. Roma Arora speaks with some experts who spill their floor care secrets - stressing on the innovative tools, equipment, cleaning products and, the stringent housekeeping staff schedule.

P&C Bar by Sergi Arola at Shangri-La Hotel Abu Dhabi is known for its contemporary setting and white and grey blended small mosaic tiles. Shahadat Husain Khan, Public Area Manager, explains, “Floor care is one of the most challenging tasks for us. P&C bar has an open space as well, which is sea facing, and receives abundance of sun and humidity. Sand storms and rain further makes the maintenance work of the mosaic tiles tougher with dirt getting gathered in between the tiles. Overpouring of drinks and breakage of glasses in a bar is very common, so regular vacuuming with a brush or dusting attachment is a must to remove any waste particles from the tiles. Another thing to keep in mind that is we have to lift the furniture when moving it on the mosaic tile floor. That way, the pieces won’t scratch the tiles”

Al Badiya restaurant at Tilal Liwa Hotel has a two-toned marble floor in white and brown; Vallikannan Subbaiah, Housekeeping Supervisor, at the hotel shares his experience in maintaining this gorgeous floor. He says, “Marble is porous, so the dust and grime gets accumulated very easily. Another thing is that when juice, soda, ketchup, or any oily item falls on the floor, we quickly have to take action, otherwise the spilling of food would result in permanent stains. I suggest that one should quickly blot the spills with a paper towel instead of wiping it because it will spread the spill. Lastly, we cannot use acidic cleaners or vinegar solution for the cleaning as it makes the marble more vulnerable to staining.”

Subbaiah believes that a proper cleaning regime has to be in place in order to maintain the gleam and shine of the floors. “We use specific products for scrubbing, mopping, crystallization and the overall maintenance of the marble floors. There’s no way we can do without the hi-tech machines these days; we use powerful wet and dry vacuum cleaners; also, special equipment is used for multi-scrubbing. There’s a proper schedule that the cleaning staff follows: apart from dusting, and mopping, the stripping of the floor takes place once in two weeks, dry crystallization to maintain the gloss happens on a daily basis, and the extensive crystallization is done once in a year. This way we can keep our marble floors sparkling forever.”

Clearly, while choosing the right floor material is important – the real challenge lies in its maintenance. And, it’s heartening to see how far the cleaning industry has come from the broom and mop to a serious business with innovative products like polishers, scrubbers, vacuums, and green chemicals.