Hood Cleaning Service
The shortcut: Land 5-10 quarterly restaurant accounts and let the fire code sell for you. NFPA 96 already tells your customers they have to call someone. Be the someone.
Industry: Cleaning & Maintenance
Investment level: Low — $5,000-$15,000
Time to launch: 6-10 weeks
Best for: People who don't mind night work, can handle a ladder and a degreaser, and would rather sign a 4-cleaning-a-year contract than sell every job from scratch. What you'll likely make: ~$2-$4K/month per route by month 6, and $6-$8K by month 12 if you stack 12-15 quarterly accounts and add semi-annuals on the side. Full math is in Section 3.
Market Opportunity
Every commercial kitchen in the country is legally required to clean its exhaust hood — and most restaurant owners hate doing it. They forget until the fire marshal asks for the certificate, then they panic-call whoever picks up the phone. That's the whole sales pitch.
- US Janitorial Services (NAICS 561720): $112.0B in 2026, growing about 1.8% — IBISWorld Janitorial Services Market Size
- 62,099 firms across 66,471 establishments (2020 Census) in cleaning broadly. Most independent kitchen-exhaust shops have fewer than 5 people — the niche is dominated by small regional crews plus a few national brands like Hood Brigade and FOOD-X.
- Broader US cleaning services on path to $147.6B by 2030, growing 5.6% a year — Grand View Research US Cleaning Services Outlook
- NFPA 96 §11.4 sets the legal cleaning frequency: quarterly for high-volume kitchens (24-hour ops, char-broilers, wok cooking), semi-annual for moderate-volume restaurants, and annual for low-volume kitchens (churches, day cares) — NFPA 96 standard.
Target customer: Independent full-service restaurants, hotel banquet kitchens, and mid-size commercial kitchens (catering halls, ghost kitchens, hospital cafeterias). Skip national chains — locked into corporate contracts. Skip food trucks — too small to bother.
Why this is a good time to start: Insurance carriers and national restaurant brands now require IKECA-certified (International Kitchen Exhaust Cleaning Association) cleaners on file. Five years ago, "the guy with a pressure washer" was good enough. Now insurers quietly reject claims when the certificate isn't from a recognized program. Certified shops charge 20-30% more.
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