diff --git a/bin/sidekiqctl b/bin/sidekiqctl
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..5f7080a1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/bin/sidekiqctl
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env ruby
+
+require 'fileutils'
+
+stage = ARGV[0]
+pidfile = ARGV[1]
+timeout = ARGV[2].to_i
+timeout = 10 if timeout == 0
+
+def done(msg)
+  puts msg
+  exit(0)
+end
+
+done 'No pidfile given' if !pidfile
+done 'Pidfile does not exist' if !File.exist?(pidfile)
+
+pid = File.read(pidfile).to_i
+done 'Invalid pidfile content' if pid == 0
+
+begin
+  Process.getpgid(pid)
+rescue Errno::ESRCH
+  done "Process doesn't exist"
+end
+
+case stage
+when 'quiet'
+  `kill -USR1 #{pid}`
+when 'stop'
+  `kill -TERM #{pid}`
+  timeout.times do
+    begin
+      Process.getpgid(pid)
+    rescue Errno::ESRCH
+      FileUtils.rm_f pidfile
+      done 'Sidekiq shut down gracefully.'
+    end
+    sleep 1
+  end
+  `kill -9 #{pid}`
+  done 'Sidekiq shut down forcefully.'
+end
diff --git a/lib/sidekiq/capistrano.rb b/lib/sidekiq/capistrano.rb
index c03e0539..37e9b9c3 100644
--- a/lib/sidekiq/capistrano.rb
+++ b/lib/sidekiq/capistrano.rb
@@ -2,18 +2,18 @@ Capistrano::Configuration.instance.load do
   before "deploy", "sidekiq:quiet"
   after "deploy", "sidekiq:restart"
 
-  _cset(:sidekiq_timeout) { 5 }
+  _cset(:sidekiq_timeout) { 10 }
 
   namespace :sidekiq do
 
     desc "Quiet sidekiq (stop accepting new work)"
     task :quiet do
-      run "cd #{current_path} && kill -USR1 `cat #{current_path}/tmp/pids/sidekiq.pid`"
+      run "cd #{current_path} && sidekiqctl quiet #{current_path}/tmp/pids/sidekiq.pid"
     end
 
     desc "Stop sidekiq"
     task :stop do
-      run "cd #{current_path} && kill `cat #{current_path}/tmp/pids/sidekiq.pid` && sleep #{fetch :sidekiq_timeout} && kill -9 `cat #{current_path}/tmp/pids/sidekiq.pid` ; rm #{current_path}/tmp/pids/sidekiq.pid"
+      run "cd #{current_path} && sidekiqctl stop #{current_path}/tmp/pids/sidekiq.pid #{fetch :sidekiq_timeout}"
     end
 
     desc "Start sidekiq"
diff --git a/sidekiq.gemspec b/sidekiq.gemspec
index 9d8b3d48..34d6a9cc 100644
--- a/sidekiq.gemspec
+++ b/sidekiq.gemspec
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ Gem::Specification.new do |gem|
   gem.description   = gem.summary = "Simple, efficient message processing for Ruby"
   gem.homepage      = "http://mperham.github.com/sidekiq"
 
-  gem.executables   = ['sidekiq']
+  gem.executables   = ['sidekiq', 'sidekiqctl']
   gem.files         = `git ls-files`.split("\n")
   gem.test_files    = `git ls-files -- test/*`.split("\n")
   gem.name          = "sidekiq"