Thinking of starting a Cleaning service

Never have done it myself but know some that do. Very competitive business and when times are slow, cleaning crew is the first to go...

target busy full service restaurants. you will probably need to hire someone to help, if you get a contract. they (you) will come in at the end of the night to do the floors in the kitchen, prep area and dry storage. the cleaning crews that i have seen do this service, move all equipment and use a water hose.
most restaurants use their cooks and dishwashers for all the cleaning at the end of the night so you should find many restaurants without this service.

i know one restaurant that i worked for, the chef told us that a cleaning company wanted to come in and do the floors. he asked us if we wanted to give up those hours... we all agreed that we would rather go home early than clean the floors. the cleaning service always did a better job anyway, we were all too tired to care.

Run away, run away!

Seriously, I did it for 30 years. You get NO respect from your clients. If somebody misses a wastebasket you get a phone call at 7 in the morning, and it's DEFCON 2.

If someone forgets to refill a toilet paper dispenser it's DEFCON 1, you'll get fired, and deservedly so.

Also as someone mentioned earlier, if the economy tanks you are the first expense business cuts, and I don't care what kind of contract you have.

Speaking of contracts, when I started we had a simple one page agreement. By the time I got out of the business it was over 8 pages as I included clauses for all the new ways people found to f&%$ me. If you're interested in my template, pm me.

Half my contracts went away when the economy tanked 2007-2009. I began looking for something else, discovered junk removal and along with that scrapping. I was able to sell the business and was happy to do so.

I'm not bitter, just glad not to be doing it anymore.