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Selling a hood cleaning company?
A permanent home for your kitchen exhaust hood cleaning business
Commercial kitchens have to keep their exhaust systems clean, and fire marshals and insurers check. If your crews work overnight so kitchens can open safely in the morning, we'd like to talk.
Why we like it
Why we buy hood cleaning businesses
We get it: your crews do their best work at 2am in someone else's kitchen, and the job has to be done, documented, and cleaned up before the morning crew walks in.
We buy essential service businesses across the Southeast and keep them. Kitchen exhaust hood cleaning is our kind of work: your customers need it on a schedule, and they can't skip it.
Fire code sets the schedule
NFPA 96 ties inspection and cleaning frequency to the type and volume of cooking: monthly for solid-fuel cooking, quarterly for high-volume operations such as 24-hour, charbroiling, or wok cooking, semiannually for moderate volume, and annually for low-volume kitchens.
Inspectors and insurers check
Fire marshals, insurance carriers, and landlords look for service records and certificates, so customers need a dependable provider and rarely let service lapse.
Recurring, contracted work
Because the schedule is set by code, hood cleaning naturally runs on recurring service agreements across restaurants, schools, hospitals, hotels, and other commercial kitchens.
Skilled, safety-focused crews
Doing the job right takes trained technicians (many hold industry certifications such as IKECA's), good documentation, and a strong safety culture.
What we look for
What stands out to us
No business checks every box. These are the strengths we get excited about.
- Recurring service agreements on NFPA 96-based schedules
- Trained or certified technicians and a strong safety record
- Thorough service reports with before-and-after documentation
- Related services such as fan maintenance, filter exchange, and grease containment
- Multi-location or institutional customers alongside independent restaurants
Our criteria
- Geography
- Across the Southeast, with deeper interest in Atlanta and Georgia. We love investing in our community.
- Revenue
- $2.5 – $50 million. Typically recurring or reoccurring
- Cash flow
- $0.5 – $5 million
- Ownership
- Founder owned or long-time owner
- Structure
- Majority to full buyout, including partnerships with management
For owners
What happens after you sell
We buy with our own money and we keep what we buy. No fund clock, and no plan to flip it in a few years.
Your customers and your team come first. We invest in people, equipment, and technology and build on what you started. Deals range from majority to full buyouts, including partnerships with management.
Confidential from the first conversation. We know how sensitive a possible sale is for your team and your customers. What you tell us stays between us.
Know a hood cleaning business owner?
Introduce us. If we buy the company, you get $10,000 in cash at close. (Not available to brokers, investment bankers, or other financial intermediaries.)
Contact
Not ready to sell? Let's talk anyway.
Most conversations start years early. Whether you're ready now or just starting to think about the future of your hood cleaning business, it costs nothing and stays between us.
Questions owners ask
Is Howler Mountain a private equity firm?
No. We're a family-owned company based in Atlanta. We buy with our own money and keep what we buy. We don't buy businesses to flip them.
Will our conversations stay confidential?
Yes. We know how sensitive a possible sale is for your team and your customers. What you tell us stays between us.
My business is smaller than your criteria. Should I still reach out?
Yes. A smaller company can be a great add-on to one we already own, so it's worth a conversation.
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