Why full-service kitchens run short intervals
A fryer station alone can put a pound or more of grease into the drain line per hundred covers. Add a flat-top, a sauté line and a dish machine, and a 50-gallon indoor trap hits its working volume in two to four weeks. Interceptors give you more room — 60 to 90 days is typical — but the arithmetic is the same: volume in versus volume available. The calculator runs it in thirty seconds.
What Richmond expects from you
Not a calendar — a number. City code caps grease in your discharge at 100 ppm and lets DPU inspect at any time, prescribe your equipment, and bill you for treatment or discontinue service for violations. A restaurant that keeps a trap below working volume, with full-evacuation receipts and manifests on file, has nothing to explain. One that skims and hopes has a discharge problem it cannot see until the city measures it.
Service built around a dinner service
- Early-morning or between-daypart visits; the truck is gone before your first delivery
- Full three-layer evacuation, wall and baffle scrape, outlet check — every time
- Dated receipt with gallons removed, plus the disposal manifest, every time
- Reminder before each scheduled visit; no contract, adjust the interval as the menu changes
The Richmond specifics
Older restaurant spaces in the Fan, Carytown and Church Hill often have undersized traps for a modern fryer line. If your trap fills faster than any reasonable interval, the honest answer is equipment, and Sec. 28-907 gives the city the power to require it. We will tell you that before the city does. Newer Scott’s Addition and Short Pump builds usually have in-ground interceptors; keep the lids clear — accessibility is a code requirement, not a courtesy.