PURPOSE: To improve polishability by adding a pretreatment rolling stage to roll the cold rolling stock after annealing of a hot rolled steel sheet to respectively specific surface hardness or above, internal hardness or above and surface roughness or below and a belt grinder stage for polishing the steel sheet.

CONSTITUTION: The austenitic stainless steel sheet (SUS 304, etc.) subjected to the annealing and pickling after hot rolling is subjected to the pretreatment rolling to regulate the surface hardness to ≥300 (Hv), the internal hardness to ≥250 (Hv) and the surface roughness to ≤0.20μm (Ra). The belt grinder stage for polishing this steel sheet is then added, by which the surface roughness Ra prior to the specular polishing is specified to a prescribed value or below. The austenitic stainless steel sheet greatly improved in the specular polishability is thus produced. The improvement in the polishabiltiy is easily and inexpensively attained in this way only by changing operating conditions without modifying equipment at all.