How to Secure your Restaurant- Security Cameras and Alarms

Security Cameras and Alarms for Your Restaurant

Are you interested in learning how to secure your restaurant, but not sure where to start?

Use this piece hand-in-hand with our Beginner’s Guide for Securing Your Perimeter. It provides an excellent foundation and will help you think about the basics before you focus on the specific needs to your restaurant.

If you’re in charge of securing a restaurant, you may not be sure where to start. Daily, you’re dealing with the public, along with a large restaurant staff. You may have multiple entrances or a parking lot that’s close to a busy road.

At SCW, we want to make sure you have the information you need to make your restaurant as secure as possible.

Want us to create a custom floorplan for your restaurant?

Your Restaurant Isn't As Safe As It Could Be

Any building — commercial, communal, industrial, or residential — faces its own unique set of threats. Before a person can act, they have to be aware. We’re here to break down what are potential threats to your restaurant and how exactly you are able to handle them.

These are your top threats:

Criminal Activity at Your Entrances

Criminal Activity in Your Parking Lot(s)

Vandalism

Employee and Customer Accountability

How We Handle Your Threats

Each threat to your restaurant is unique and requires a custom setup and a comprehensive plan. Below, we’ve laid out why you should be aware of each threat, what solutions we recommend for it, and how to best put your solutions into action.

How to Handle Criminal Activity at Your Entrances

Because you’re dealing with the public, anyone can come into your restaurant. In the unfortunate event that your restaurant experiences theft or other criminal activity, you want to make sure that you can identify the faces of those entering your building.

What You Need

Installing bullet cameras in the front, sides, and back entrances of your building will you allow you to see who is coming in and out. You will choose your camera depending on how far you need to see. For instance, if you need to see more than 50 feet out, you'll need a long range camera

Bullet Cameras

How to Handle Criminal Activity in Your Parking Lot(s) and Vandalism

Parking lots are often dangerous areas where criminal activity happens. For a more in depth look, read how to secure your parking lot.

Additionally, you’ll want to make sure you protect your restaurant from vandalism such as people using your dumpsters illegally, destroying your property, or tagging your building.

What You Need

In addition to the bullet surveillance cameras you’ll have covering your parking lot, we recommend a dedicated camera that covers your dumpster. It’s very easy for people to pull into the parking lot and use your dumpster illegally, so you need to make sure that you have coverage in that area at all times.

Bullet Style Cameras

How to Handle Customer and Employee Accountability

In a restaurant you have a large number of employees and customers. Not to mention, there’s a lot going on in between the hostess stand, bar, dining room, and back kitchen. You’ll want to know what’s going on in each of these spaces.

Bar

As a restaurant owner or manager, securing your bar should be a top priority. Not only do you have a lot of alcohol and cash in these areas, this is also an area that potential confrontations, threats, or harassments could happen. Additionally, you’ll need to make sure your employees are complying with alcohol laws in your state.

Dining Room(s)

You’ll want to see all of the tables to ensure you can monitor what’s going on in your dining room from a distance to make sure tables are getting bussed, customer/waiter interactions are going smoothly, and, how busy you are.

Outdoor Dining Area(s)

Many restaurants have outdoor patios and no way to proactively monitor them. As a manager, you need to be able to see what is happening outside while you’re managing the interior. At night, patios are also ideal spots for mischievous activity.

Coolers and Pantries

This is the biggest area of theft for a restaurant outside the kitchen. The cooler and pantries are the "inventory" spots and things go missing. As a manager, you need to know who went into the pantry or cooler to figure out how stuff went missing.

Kitchen Workflow

You’ll want to see prep stations, grills, and washing areas to ensure workflows are happening as they should, employees are not messing around, and people are washing their hands. If someone complains about an order, you can look back at the footage and determine the truth.

Host Stand

Many restaurants have a hostess stand, so you may want to see activity there. This may not be a priority, but it’s still nice to be able to pull footage, so you can see how your customers are treated as they enter your restaurant.

What You Need

Wide Angle Turret Camera

Dome Camera Dome or turret style cameras work best to cover wide views of spaces. The Sheriff is best outside when placed in a spot that can be reached or vandalized easily. This is a good option for spots outside that continuously get vandalized, or in outdoor dining areas.

In the inside of your restaurant, Wide Angle Turret Cameras can be used to capture most activity. We recommend placing these in the corners small rooms and on the walls to monitor the hostess stand, dining areas, and kitchen zones.