Skip to main content
    (608) 360-5818
    Commercial exterior cleaning for Restaurants in Madison, WI

    Restaurant Exterior Cleaning — Madison, WI

    Restaurants live or die on what customers see in the first three seconds of walking up — a greasy back door, gum-stained sidewalk, or streaky windows is enough to turn a Yelp five into a three. The Total Wash Co. runs our restaurant program on that premise: we clean what the health inspector cares about AND what the guest notices on the way in. That means hot-water surface cleaning to lift the cooking grease that migrates from your kitchen exhaust to your back-of-house concrete, degreaser-safe soft wash on siding that a standard pressure wash would strip, gum and graffiti removal on your front walkway, and streak-free exterior window cleaning done before open or after close so your dining room is never disrupted. We're familiar with Dane County food establishment rules, know which chemicals are compatible with your grease trap runoff, and can schedule recurring visits around your busy season — weekly in the summer patio months, biweekly through Badger football Saturdays, monthly in the off-season. Single location or a 6-restaurant group, we bring the same crew, the same chemistry, and the same respect for your dining room aesthetic every single visit.

    Get your restaurant site visit quote(608) 360-5818
    Licensed & Insured
    5.0(206+ reviews)
    5,500+ Jobs Done
    Madison's Trusted Choice Since 2021

    What Restaurants Need From Their Exterior Cleaner

    We built our restaurants program around the concerns our clients actually ask about.

    Health code compliance

    Exterior back-of-house surfaces are inspected too. Grease buildup near dumpsters and service doors is a common write-up — we solve it before the inspector arrives.

    Kitchen hood & exhaust exterior

    We clean the exterior of your hood system, rooftop grease drip, and surrounding walls. (Interior hood cleaning requires an NFPA-96 certified vendor — we can recommend one.)

    Guest-facing first impressions

    Streak-free windows, gum-free walkways, and clean patio furniture are table-stakes for a premium dining experience. We schedule pre-opening visits so guests never see us.

    Grease, oil & stain removal

    Hot-water surface cleaning with food-safe degreaser lifts the deep grease pressure alone won't touch. Safe for decorative concrete, stamped patios, and food-prep-adjacent surfaces.

    How We Run Restaurants

    The specifics behind the work — chemistry, equipment, scheduling, and the discipline restaurants actually require.

    The four restaurant exterior problems we solve weekly

    After cleaning State Street, Monroe Street, Atwood, and suburban Madison restaurants since 2021, the same four exterior problems show up over and over. Problem one: airborne grease migration. Your kitchen exhaust deposits a film of aerosolized cooking oil on every horizontal and vertical surface within a 15-foot radius of the rooftop discharge — siding, gutters, signage, even the back of the dumpster enclosure. Standard cold-water pressure washing emulsifies this film and smears it; you need 200°F water with a food-safe degreaser dwell. Problem two: dumpster-pad and grease-trap-area sanitation. Health-inspector write-ups for grease accumulation around dumpsters are one of the most common Dane County food establishment citations. Problem three: front-of-house gum staining. The sidewalk in front of a Saturday-night-busy restaurant collects 40-80 gum spots per linear foot of frontage every quarter. Steam removal lifts each one clean without scarring stamped concrete. Problem four: patio furniture and outdoor dining surfaces — May 1st patio openings have a 2-week reset window where every chair, every table base, every floor pad must be deep-cleaned. We schedule restaurant patio prep weeks in advance to hit the May 1 deadline without overtime panic.

    Chemistry and equipment compatible with food prep

    Every chemical that touches a restaurant exterior is on our food-service-safe SDS list and stays in your file folder for your next inspector visit. Primary degreaser: Hydro-Solv 4055 (USDA A1 rated, food-contact compatible after rinse), used at 1:32 dilution for hot-water surface cleaning. Mildew/algae treatment: 0.5% sodium hypochlorite + plant-derived surfactant for back-of-house siding (NSF/ANSI Standard 60 compliant — drinking-water-treatment grade). Gum and adhesive removal: stainless steel-tipped steam wand at 285°F + zero chemicals — lifts gum from porous concrete in 15-25 seconds per spot. Hardware: dual-axle Hydro Tek HD60005 hot-water unit (4,000 PSI, 5 GPM, 200°F sustained), 12 GPM soft-wash X-Jet rig for siding, Karcher SC1.4 commercial steam units for gum and graffiti. Containment mats deployed under all wash zones near storm drains per City of Madison Stormwater Permit M-001-15. Every restaurant job ends with stored chemistry log, photo documentation of containment, and a fresh SDS binder updated to your facilities folder.

    Health code, NFPA-96, and the inspector lens

    Wisconsin Food Code §3-301.11 and Dane County Food Establishment Rule §11.04 both flag exterior grease accumulation as a citable condition. Our restaurant program is built explicitly to keep your back-of-house exterior off the citation list. We address the airborne-grease-migration zone (the 15-foot bubble around your rooftop kitchen exhaust discharge), the dumpster-pad and grease-bin enclosure surfaces, and the back-door service-entrance concrete — the three areas Dane County inspectors check. What we do NOT do, and will refer you to a partner for, is interior kitchen exhaust hood cleaning. NFPA 96 §11.4 requires interior hood, duct, and discharge fan cleaning to be performed by an IKECA-certified technician with proper code documentation; that's not us. We service the exterior of your hood system, the rooftop discharge area, and the surrounding walls. For interior NFPA-96 cleaning we'll refer you to a Madison-area certified vendor we trust and coordinate scheduling so both jobs happen the same night. One phone call, two cleanings, no gaps in your compliance.

    Scheduling around your service windows

    Restaurant scheduling is its own discipline. We do not, under any circumstances, clean during your service hours — no exceptions for tip-cycle concerns about wet floors, signage obstruction, or kitchen-exhaust shutdown. We default to two windows: pre-open (5 a.m.–9 a.m. for breakfast restaurants, 8 a.m.–11 a.m. for lunch-first concepts) or post-close (11 p.m.–3 a.m. for dinner-only operators). Light towers come on every overnight job (4× Honda EU3000is generators with LED Wobble-Lights — quiet enough to keep your neighbors happy). Patio season scheduling tightens to weekly visits May through September for high-volume operators (Tipsy Cow, Brassiere V, anything with a Madison Magazine review), biweekly through Badger football Saturdays in the fall, monthly through winter. Multi-location restaurant groups (5+ concepts under common ownership) get a single point of contact, consolidated invoicing per concept-LLC, and synchronized service schedules across all sites — the same crew, the same chemistry, the same standard at every storefront under your brand.

    Food-Safe ChemistryAfter-Hours Scheduling$2M General LiabilityDane County Food Code AwareNFPA-96 Hood Referrals

    Services Built for Restaurants

    Bundle anything on this list into a single recurring contract.

    Surface Cleaning (Hot Water)

    Hot-water pressure washing with food-safe degreaser — grease-lifting, not just surface-spraying.

    Learn more

    Gum & Graffiti Removal

    Steam-based removal that doesn't scar concrete or decorative surfaces in front-of-house.

    Learn more

    Exterior Window Cleaning

    Pre-open or post-close scheduling. Streak-free, no ladders in the dining room during service hours.

    Learn more

    Patio & Furniture Wash

    Seasonal deep-clean of outdoor dining areas before patio opens, recurring touch-ups through summer.

    Learn more

    Building Wash

    Siding, brick, and stucco soft-washed without stripping paint or damaging signage.

    Learn more

    Why Restaurants Choose The Total Wash Co.

    • $2M General Liability + $5M umbrella
    • Wisconsin licensed and insured since 2021
    • COI issued before every first visit
    • Commercial references available on request
    • 24/7 scheduling — weekends, holidays, off-hours welcome
    • Dedicated account manager for portfolios of 3+ buildings

    Recent Restaurants Work

    We handle restaurants across Madison and Dane County. Contact us for verified references and case studies specific to your restaurants type — we're happy to connect you with existing clients who match your scope.

    Ask for case studies: (608) 360-5818

    Real restaurant exterior cleaning ranges in Madison

    Real numbers from real Madison-area restaurants jobs. Final pricing always after a free site walk — these ranges are where most jobs land.

    Single-location restaurant exterior wash + kitchen vent degrease (typical 2,500-4,500 sqft footprint)

    $450–$850

    Includes back-of-house siding wash, dumpster pad degrease, sidewalk gum removal, exterior of rooftop hood discharge area. Excludes interior NFPA-96 hood cleaning (IKECA-certified vendor referral provided).

    Patio season prep (May 1 readiness, full outdoor dining deep clean)

    $285–$625

    Includes patio concrete or pavers, chair + table base wash, planter box clean, perimeter rail wipe-down. Larger patios (20+ tables, multi-tier) trend toward high end.

    Storefront window cleaning (in + out, pre-open hours, ~12-30 windows)

    $95–$245

    Standalone visit. Low end for small Monroe Street boutique footprint, high end for Hilldale/State Street large multi-pane storefronts.

    Quarterly recurring contract (single location, all services bundled)

    15-20% below per-visit rate

    Most cost-effective for restaurants. We sequence kitchen-exhaust-exterior, dumpster pad, patio, and storefront across the year so every surface is cleaned on its right cadence.

    What drives pricing within these ranges

    • Building footprint and how many exterior surfaces need attention
    • Hood discharge volume (BTU output) and surrounding wall grease load
    • Patio scale (Number of tables, decorative concrete versus plain, planter complexity)
    • Storefront window count and accessibility (ground floor versus second story)
    • Recurring versus one-off (recurring saves 15-20%; one-off carries mobilization cost)

    Recurring contracts: Quarterly recurring restaurant contracts cost 15-20% less than equivalent per-visit pricing. Most Madison restaurants on recurring contracts cite the consistency (same crew, same chemistry, same arrival time) as the value, not the discount.

    Procurement Actions

    Three actions B2B procurement teams ask for first. Each lands in our inbox with the right context attached.

    Request restaurant exterior site visit

    Single location or multi-concept restaurant group — we'll walk your property in 24 hours and send a written scope with food-service-safe SDS attached.

    Start request

    Inquire about recurring restaurant contract

    Quarterly cleaning bundle saves 15-20%. Includes synchronized kitchen-exhaust-exterior, dumpster pad, patio, and storefront on the right cadence per surface.

    Start request

    Request Certificate of Insurance + SDS binder

    We issue COI naming your concept LLC as additional insured + a complete food-service-safe SDS binder before any first visit. Useful for your next health inspector touchpoint.

    Start request

    Trust, Compliance, and Verifiable Standards

    The Total Wash Co. has cleaned exteriors for Madison-area restaurants since 2021 — State Street, Monroe Street, Atwood, Hilldale, Greenway Station, downtown Sun Prairie, downtown Middleton. Owner-operator Ashton Ferry personally scopes every restaurant first visit and is the single point of contact through onboarding. We carry $2M general liability, $1M commercial auto, full Wisconsin workers' compensation, and a $5M umbrella policy — coverage levels every restaurant landlord MSA we've seen requires. Every chemical that touches your property is on a USDA A1, NSF/ANSI Standard 60, or food-contact-safe-after-rinse list (SDS binder provided to your facilities folder before first visit). We are members in good standing of the Power Washers of North America (PWNA), comply with the City of Madison Stormwater Permit M-001-15 for runoff containment near storm drains, and follow Wisconsin DNR best management practices for grease-bearing wastewater. We do not perform NFPA-96 interior hood cleaning ourselves but refer to IKECA-certified Madison-area partners we trust. Restaurant-specific references available on request — we are happy to connect you with active clients in your concept category.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Do you clean kitchen exhaust hoods?+

    We clean the exterior of the hood, surrounding ceiling, rooftop discharge area, and grease runoff on siding. Interior hood cleaning is regulated by NFPA 96 and requires a certified vendor — we'll refer you to one we trust in Madison.

    Are your chemicals safe around food prep areas?+

    Yes. We use food-safe degreasers and biodegradable detergents for back-of-house restaurant work. All chemistry is rinsed off and surfaces are dry before your kitchen staff returns. We maintain SDS sheets on file for your inspector.

    Can you clean before opening or after close?+

    Yes — most of our restaurant clients schedule us for 5 a.m.–9 a.m. or 11 p.m.–3 a.m. visits. We bring light towers if needed and work around your back-of-house operations.

    How do you handle grease runoff?+

    Surfactants and degreasers are applied dry, then rinsed to containment mats when possible, or directed away from storm drains per Dane County and City of Madison stormwater rules. We never flush grease to storm sewer.

    Do you offer recurring schedules for busy seasons?+

    Yes. Most Madison restaurants go weekly May through September (patio season), biweekly through football Saturdays, and monthly the rest of the year. One contract, one standing invoice, no re-quoting every visit.

    Ready to talk?

    Site visit within 24 hours. No pressure, no pitch — just a walkthrough and a written scope. (608) 360-5818 or the form below.

    Get your restaurant site visit quote(608) 360-5818