Short answer
Shut off the water source, cut power to any submerged equipment at the breaker (never in standing water), and move food and paper goods out of the affected area. Call a licensed restoration company that has handled commercial kitchens, document everything with photos before cleanup starts, and keep the health department in the loop before you reopen.
When a restaurant floods, the clock matters twice
A burst supply line, an overflowed prep sink, or a failed dish machine does two kinds of damage at once. There is the water itself, soaking into flooring, cabinets, and drywall. And there is every hour the dining room stays dark, which a homeowner never has to think about but a restaurant owner lives with immediately.
The first ten minutes set the tone for the whole event. Find the source and shut it off at the nearest valve. If water is anywhere near an outlet, a panel, or plugged-in equipment, do not step into it. Cut power at the breaker first, then deal with the water.
Assign one person to make calls, the water source shutoff, the restoration company, and if needed the landlord or property owner, while everyone else focuses on moving product and equipment out of the water's path. Restaurants rarely have the luxury of a slow, careful assessment during service hours, so a short list of who does what, decided ahead of time rather than during the flood itself, keeps the first response organized instead of chaotic.
Protect the kitchen before anything else
The kitchen is where the money and the risk both live. Walk-in coolers and freezers, dish machines, and the line equipment are expensive and often sit directly in the path of a leak. Dry storage is the other priority - cardboard, paper goods, and anything porous wicks water quickly and becomes unusable.
Grease traps and floor drains can back up during a flood event and add contamination to what was otherwise clean water. Treat any water that has touched a floor drain, dish pit, or grease interceptor as dirtier than it looks, and keep staff and any food contact surfaces well away from it until it has been professionally cleaned.
- Kill power to submerged or splashed equipment at the breaker
- Move dry goods, to-go supplies, and paper products off the floor
- Prop open walk-in doors only if the compressor itself is not wet
- Keep staff and guests out of the affected area until it is assessed
The health department and your reopening
A restaurant carries a layer of oversight a house does not. Depending on what flooded and how, your local health authority may want to know before you reopen, especially if a floor drain backed up or food storage was compromised. Keep a written record of what was thrown out and why - it protects you later and speeds up any reinspection.
Reopening is rarely all-or-nothing. Dry storage and the dining room can often come back first while the kitchen line finishes drying, if your local rules and your own judgment support a phased reopening.
Insurance for a business is its own conversation
Commercial policies are built differently from a homeowner's policy, and some include coverage for lost income while you are closed, on top of the physical repair. We do not know what your specific policy covers - that is between you and your carrier - but many commercial water losses are covered when the cause is sudden, like a pipe failure, rather than a leak that was ignored for months.
Document before you clean. Photos and video of standing water, damaged equipment, and ruined inventory, taken before anything is thrown away or moved, make the claim process faster. Read more on what documentation helps in a claim on our insurance claims page, and on how coverage decisions generally get made on our is water damage covered page.
Choose a restoration company that has done commercial kitchens
A kitchen has stainless steel, grease, tile, concrete, and sometimes cooking oils mixed into the water, which changes how it is cleaned versus a living room carpet. Ask whether the crew has commercial experience and whether they can work overnight or on a split schedule to reduce closed hours.
Structural drying for a commercial kitchen follows the same IICRC S500 standard used in a home, with daily moisture readings until the space reads dry, not just until it looks dry. Odor control matters more here too, since grease residue combined with moisture can hold smell longer than plain water damage.
Preventing the next one
Las Vegas hard water wears on fittings, supply lines, and dish machine connections faster than it does in many other parts of the country, and a kitchen runs those fittings hard every day of the week. A brief annual walk-through with a plumber, checking connections behind the line and under the three-compartment sink, catches a slow failure before it becomes a flooded kitchen during Friday dinner service.
Keep an eye on anything that has started to drip slowly, a fitting that needs to be tightened more often than it used to, or a floor drain that backs up occasionally even outside of a major event. These small signals are usually cheaper to address on a Tuesday afternoon than after they fail completely.
Getting the doors back open
Once the source is fixed, equipment is checked by a qualified technician, and the affected surfaces are dry and cleaned, most restaurants can reopen without further delay. Keep your staff updated throughout, since a confused front-of-house team creates its own kind of chaos with guests.
Nevada Water Damage answers restaurant and commercial calls 24 hours a day, in English or Spanish, and the inspection is free. Call (702) 213-9556 when the water starts and we will help you get the kitchen back on its feet.
