PlumbingBossPro Blog — Quotes & Estimates

Quoting Restaurants: Plumbing Estimates for Grease Lines, Floor Drains and Recurring Jetting

A restaurant with a backed-up floor drain at 6pm on a Friday is the most motivated customer a plumber will ever meet. A restaurant with a grease line that gets jetted on schedule never has that Friday. Quoting restaurants well is about winning the emergency and then turning it into the schedule.

How Restaurants Differ From Homeowners

Restaurants have a lot in common with the property managers covered in Quoting Property Managers and Landlords: Plumbing Estimates Across Many Addresses. Groups often have several locations, the person approving may not be on site, and they prefer simple billing.

But restaurants have their own pressures. Downtime costs them money every minute. Grease is a constant problem. And they want work done before opening, after closing or between rushes, never in the middle of service.

The Common Restaurant Quotes

Most restaurant plumbing quotes fall into a few groups:

• Grease-line jetting. Usually recurring, to keep kitchen lines from clogging.
• Floor drain and trench drain clearing. Often urgent.
• Main line clearing and camera inspection. When backups keep happening.
• Water heater work. Restaurants depend on hot water for dishwashing, and a failed heater is an emergency.
• Fixture repairs. Hand sinks, prep sinks, restroom toilets and faucets.
• Backflow tests. Where the building has a backflow preventer that needs testing.

Set each up on your service list so restaurant estimates read as clearly as residential ones.

Quote the Recurring Jetting, Not Just the Emergency

The emergency call is the door. The recurring jetting is the relationship. After clearing a grease-clogged line, the natural next quote is regular jetting to keep it from happening again.

In PlumbingBossPro, recurring work is set by the minimum number of days between visits. A busy kitchen might need its grease line jetted every 14 days; a lighter one every 30. Quote it as a recurring service, and once the restaurant approves, each visit comes due on the Waiting List on its own. The Waiting List shows every visit that has come due on a live map, with pins colored by status: not due yet, due now, or overdue past a 7-day grace period.

How often a particular kitchen needs jetting depends on its menu, volume and plumbing. Use what you see on the first few visits to set the interval, and adjust from there.

Write the Estimate for the Manager Who Isn't There

Restaurant estimates are often approved by an owner or a regional manager who was not there when the tech found the problem. Make the estimate stand on its own:

• Name the location if the client has more than one.
• Describe the finding. “Heavy grease buildup in kitchen line from three-compartment sink to main. Line cleared by cable; buildup remains.”
• Explain the recommendation. “Recommend hydro-jetting now and every 30 days to keep the line open.”
• Say when the work can happen. “Can be scheduled before 10am opening.”

Online approval lets the decision-maker approve from wherever they are, and the approved estimate becomes the scheduled job.

Scheduling Around Service

Restaurants want work done when they are closed or slow. Access notes on the address help: “Kitchen opens at 6am. Back door access, ring bell. Do not enter during lunch 11 to 2.” The tech sees those notes on the job card. On the dispatch board, early-morning restaurant stops can be placed at the start of a van's route, and route order can be set by hand when timing matters more than distance.

Automatic “on the way” and “arrived” texts let the manager know the van is coming, so someone is there to open the back door.

Quote the Emergency Clearly Too

The first call from a restaurant is usually urgent, and it is tempting to skip the estimate and just clear the drain. Quote it anyway, even if it is a two-line estimate sent while the tech is on the way. An after-hours service call and a floor drain clearing, approved online by the manager, means nobody argues about the invoice next week. It also gives the owner a clean record of what happened when they ask why the kitchen was down for an hour.

Billing a Restaurant Group

A restaurant group with several locations can be set up as one client with many addresses. Set to Monthly account billing, they get one statement each month covering every address, with each line labeled. Recurring jetting at three locations plus a water heater repair at one shows up as a single clear statement.

For a single restaurant, card on file with charge on completion is often simpler. Either way, invoices carry line items and sales tax. For notes on tax, see Sales Tax on Plumbing Quotes: Keeping the Estimate and the Invoice in Agreement.

Restaurants reward plumbers who prevent their emergencies. A clear quote for recurring jetting, followed by visits that come due on their own, is how you become that plumber. For more, see the plumbing estimate software overview.