Restaurants are currently experiencing a steep decline in overall business that for many will be difficult to recover from. Owners need to be creative with the way they handle and maintain customers. Today more than ever we need to protect ourselves and our customers from spreading disease and becoming sick. Restaurant owners in particular are struggling to implement necessary strategies to adhere to CDC recommendations as well as ensure that customers feel safe when entering their establishments. The CDC guidelines for restaurants highlight 4 key areas:
- Promoting Behaviors that Reduce Spread
- Maintaining Healthy Environments
- Maintaining Healthy Operations
- Preparing for Sick Employees
Each of these sections emphasizes social distancing, monitoring and mitigation strategies to limit the spread of harmful pathogens.
Key Points:
Promoting behaviors to reduce the spread is one of the most challenging aspects of this pandemic. Washing your hands and covering your mouth or nose when you cough or sneeze should be a given today. The more difficult aspect of this is dealing with employees who are sick yet need to earn an income to provide for their families. The average waiter will come into contact with approximately 30-70 customers each shift. This is why restaurants need to have a strict stay at home policy for sick employees. If possible, sick pay should be provided to help promote this behavior.
As we have witnessed social distancing reduces the spread of harmful pathogens considerably. Maintaining distance in public areas has proven to be difficult.
How can restaurants maintain the 6 feet rule by lowering capacity and still have a positive cash flow?
Restaurants need to implement efficiency strategies to increase the table turn rate. These include but are not limited to the following:
- Greet Guests Immediately
- Once seated ensure a waiter visits the table within 3 minutes
- Reduce number of trips from back of the house to the main floor
- Ensure order accuracy
- Remove any impediments within the kitchen
- Provide customer bill and process payment within a timely manner
Employee hygiene has always been a cornerstone in the industry. Today it is even more important to ensure that employees are maintaining the highest standard of personal hygiene. Washing hands frequently and using cloth face masks should be enforced.
Shared menus and reusable items should be eliminated to reduce the possibility of contact transfer. Digital contactless menus have become very popular in the recent months and allow restaurants to eliminate the cost of printing disposable menus.
Conclusion
In conclusion we are facing unprecedented times and restaurants big and small must adapt to our changing environment. Running efficiently, implementing new technology and processes can help restaurants combat the current restrictions posed by COVID-19. Finding new ways of engaging your customers through marketing and loyalty programs can provide exponential results and provide a steady uptick in revenue.
Menu2Scan is here to assist with process improvement, digital menus and marketing efforts.
