How You Can Prepare Your Restaurant for Reopening Post Coronavirus Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic is currently floating everywhere around the world with restrictions and mandatory lockdown in some countries, restaurants have turned to shift to online food ordering and delivery as a means of generating revenue. Since it has been quite a long time the news of this pandemic has reached us but there is no assurance when it is going to end and businesses can continue their business as we were doing before.
In many states like South Carolina and Georgia, restaurants are allowed to open by the end of April. Other states are continuing their stay-at-home orders till the month of June and beyond. Restaurants are also allowing their customers to visit their place and slowly are trying to bounce back soon.
Here are few tips on how to prepare for full reopening once the situation of coronavirus resumes normality:
- Don’t Ditch the Takeout and Delivery System: Due to coronavirus the whole world is practicing social distancing with restaurants introducing ‘no contact takeout and delivery’, which has become a new custom for serving the customers who want to have good and healthy food to satisfy their taste buds but with safety and precaution.
After reopening the restaurants’ people will start adapting to the new lifestyle but the habits people have adopted during this time will still remain with them post-pandemic also so don’t ditch the takeaway and delivery after fully re-opening the restaurant as it will take some time for people to change and adapt to the new environment again.
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- Replace your Paper Food Menu: People are ram into contactless routine nowadays. So they don’t prefer to touch your paper food menu which comes in many hands during whole day of the business. It is not feasible to print thousands of menus to distribute each to each customer. Instead of it innovate the idea of displaying the food menu.
Get QR based Digital Food Menu, So that your customer can scan QR code and get your food menu on their mobile device without installing in any app. You can showcase your food menu or also giving them the option to place orders from that digital food menu. This is the more popular way of giving your food menu into the hand of customers without a touch of any human mankind. - Promote Gift Cards: Promoting gift cards is a good source of revenue for the restaurant owners to get cash inflow without giving something in return until the situation becomes normal. So, don’t stop selling and promoting gift cards as they are a good source of profit in all ways.
- Communicate with Your Vendor: Various restaurants are doing great sales on beverages, wine, liquor, etc. but it is a good idea to talk to your vendors if they can take back from you some of the products that are non-perishable and resell to another merchant so that you can get some extra cash for work.
- Stay Connected with Your Guest: Communicating with your customer even in the worst case is very important. Staying connected with the customers helps the restaurants retain their valuable customers to get them back to you when your business will start to re-open again after everything returns to normal. If you are not communicating with your guests then they may think that you are shut down completely. The best way to stay connected is through social media. Sharing videos on social media of basic recipes, any new recipe you are going to make, many other contents such as teaching knife skills, useful kitchen tips, etc. Promoting the content on your email to your subscribers so that your presence can be felt. For restaurants, social media is a great tool of communication for those who have adopted the takeout and delivery model due to the coronavirus outbreak. Things are changing so fast so don’t forget to update your customers daily on your ordering options or menu if there is any change and also keep them informed about social distancing procedures also for their health and safety so that they can feel connected with you on an emotional level also.
- Don’t Rush into Things; take Small steps when you decide to Re-open your Restaurant: Remember that the things will take time to come to normal after the pandemic situation ends. People visiting your restaurant will still worry about getting in close contact with strangers and being a good restaurant owner; it’s your responsibility to give your guests a safe and comfortable feeling when they arrive in your place.
You must keep strict hygiene and cleaning regime along with few social distancing protocols. If there are events to be planned in your restaurants such as music, parties, etc., that can possibly bring the crowd, in that case, keep a limit on a number of people allowed during an event at the same time strict social distancing so that you can provide a comfortable space for everyone out there who is coming to attend the event.
For quick-service restaurants mainly, it is wise to invest in mobile or order ahead options with limited or no-contact delivery for those who will be still worried about close human physical interaction. - Identify the Opportunities: You can look for opportunities during this crisis so that you can come up with new ideas that can give a new direction to your business. As the business is slow there is a lack of inventory, you may find new ways to better manage food costs, change your menu. You can utilize your POS data to see what are your best-selling dishes and items that cost you more than they are worth. You can change, delete some of your menu items that are not selling. Restaurants owners can look into their profit and loss accounts and can get a clear view of where their money is worth investing and can make better decisions for their business currently as well as in the future.
- Implement Online Ordering from Table: When a customer comes and sits on the table the first thing that is handed to the customers is the menu. This step is not right in this current situation as no touch is the new behavior trending. So, to keep your customers safe from physical interaction with humans it’s better to give them the option of ordering their food from an online menu which they can access from their smartphones because with online ordering customers can completely avoid touching the menu and can place orders whenever they want.
- Go Cashless: If you don’t have a cashless system then it’s the high time you must have one so that people who come to eat can pay you without any touch that happens during the exchange of money with the cashier. Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, and other lots of mediums are there that can be used and are necessary to have during and after the crisis period.
- Train Your Staff: It is really very important to manage the safety and health of your employees if you are re-opening your restaurant. You should tell your staff about the importance of taking safety precautions and maintaining hygienic conditions and sanitization to operate after the pandemic also. You can give them training on how to properly wash their hands when they are at work. Give clear instructions to wash their hands frequently and maintain social distancing with each other as well as customers to avoid any kind of problem to anyone. Ask them to use gloves and masks all the time.
- Monitor the Employees’ Health and Update your Health and Sick Policy: You must also have a system to monitor the health of your employees and should update your health and sick policy to make sure that staff you are sick or have symptoms does not come to work in any case.
