Restaurants take an innovative approach to keep business afloat post COVID-19

With the government planning to ease lockdowns in phases, businesses of various genres gear up to welcome their customers. But it’s not going to be the same. The restauranters sit and narrow down their losses and with how much capital is left to re-open, it’s a task that requires a lot of detailing and modifications.

As Australian café or fine dining owners or any around the world, your priority is to ensure the safety of your staff and guests. Once this is done, you will be required to innovate your approach towards the food business. This will let you ride through the economic crisis of the pandemic.

This piece of write-up will guide and support you towards minimising the impact of COVID -19 and would open new ways to generate business. Scenarios are changing around the world and COVID-19 is not going anytime soon. All businesses are adapting and bending to new norms and the hospitality industry is no exception. The Restaurant and Catering Australia (R&CA) which is an industry body representing thousands of catering businesses have rolled out guideline on all parameters that will help hospitality fraternity to float in post-pandemic challenging times.

Pro-tip: This is a chance to create and maintain a close relationship with your staff. You must have shelved some of your kitchen guys due to loss of business. Approach them as they can be the best one to help you revamp.

How has your food dining establishment responded to the COVID-19

This is one question that hovers over the customers' mind is how did any business respond to the pandemic. Some have an opinion that it will last until summers and then it is gone. While others might have an idea that with certain precautions we have to learn how to survive with the virus. In any case, every individual is bleakly on what a food set-up is thinking about coming back or re-opening?

Pro-Tip: Engage with your customers on varied platforms and educate them about the safety norms you are following or have created new. This will help build trust towards your brand and will work a long way.

  • Your restaurant should make the visitor feel that they are safe at the premises.
    • The CEO of R&CA Wes Lambart has quoted that venue guidelines have been curated with crucial inputs by leading epidemiologists of the country.  Make sure the food establishment has separate doors for letting in and out of the visitors/customers. Likewise, it will reduce the contact of human beings to a great extent and reduce the chances of fo getting infected.
    • The body strongly recommends the staff should be trained well for personal as well as premises hygiene. The commercial kitchen brigade should be well-coached about how to sanitize the major touchpoints in the restaurant. A scheduled approach would make your task more organised.
    • The kitchen staff needs to be checked daily on temperature through thermal screening. This will enable customers to develop trust in your approach for safety guidelines.
    • Anti-bacterial gloves and apron will work a long way to not only keep the infection at bay but also to attract visitors/customers.
    • Tables in your commercial premises should be 1.5 metres apart. Only two guests per table are recommended. Social distancing is going to be the new fashion. Adapt and follow to encourage others to follow. And the restaurant or café business is the best way to influence masses with this new norm.
    • Convert your fancy tiny bottles of salt, pepper and condiments into disposable packing. This will immensely cut down the contact frequency of your guests.
    • Disinfect…disinfect…disinfect. You and your brigade must mug up this slogan. The new guidelines of the R & CA have clearly stated that not just cleaning, disinfecting high touch surfaces, like handles of doors, tale tops, switches, charging points, routers are a must. Make sure your staff develops this habit asap. 
    • Install hand sanitizers and give away souvenirs depicting masks to encourage safe habits.
    • At any given point of time, only 10people are recommended to dine at any particular premises.

Pro-tip: Make sure the disinfectant leaves a hint of its presence in the air. This will refresh your guests and create new mind space for mobility after the deadly crisis.  

  • Entice them with your new preparation of food and representation table
    • Common food areas like salad bars and common drinking water points shall be a scene of the past.
    • Innovate your menu card to touchless ones to reduce human contact. If not possible, disinfect your laminated menu card each time the visitor orders. The disposable menu is a good idea but should not add to wastage.
    • Create a new menu where preparation and serving of the food item comply with minimum contact. Invent new ways to prepare your restaurant specialities.
    • Green cutlery or cutlery made from leaves and twigs should replace the old traditional ones. They are disposed after a single use and don’t add to wastage at all. If you are unable to replace due to budget crunch or unavailability, make sure cutlery is washed with warm water thoroughly in commercial dishwashers.
    • Add disinfected napkins to your table contents.
    • Disinfect every time, the used table and chair after the guest has left. This practice will enforce hygiene that is the need of the hour.
    • Put a sign of ‘Disinfected and safe for use’ to educate your guest about the sanitisation task you have performed. This will encourage you to win their hearts and how much you care about safety and hygiene.
    • Make sure you put up signage of information stating that your premises if following guidelines from the local government. Winning trust of your customer is going to be a task.

Pro-tip: Conduct a training program while you plan your re-opening for your entire staff on how to deal with all aspects of your restaurant post-COVID-19 restrictions. You can also seek professional help to make your program more effective.

  • Proactive and professional staff
    • R & CA strongly recommends restaurant business owners to promote online reservations for a table. They will be required to submit their contact details like name, address, contact number. Your staff will be active in providing this information in case an infection arises or if you are promoting your restaurant.
    • Make sure your brigade is wearing masks and gloves
    • Food serving outlets have the right to refuse entry if any COVID-19 symptomatic guest visits.
    • You require to segregate your floor space to separate diners from takeaways. Ensure floor marking is followed by the guests. Your staff should be polite and vigilant at the same time to guide guests for social distancing.
    • If the staff finds any guests symptomatic while dining, he/she should immediately appear with disinfected napkins.
    • Your staff should offer sanitizer to the guest in case the guest shows symptoms of COVID-19.
    • Your staff should be prepared to contact local medical services in case a guest needs to be transported.
    • You will need to thoroughly disinfect the table and chair and every touchpoint the possibly infected person has come in contact with. The staff needs to be highly vigilant for the safety and hygiene of self and other guests.

Pro-tip: Pandemic has made people go stir-crazy. They are urging to connect and possibly help each other. Shape your restaurant into a community den. Invest and strictly follow the safety guidelines while doing so. People will need space to connect and communicate. Make your place worth it and your business will surely experience momentum. 

  • The spine of any restaurant- its commercial kitchen and commercial kitchen equipment
    • Disassemble equipment like planetary mixers, blenders and grinders one by one and start the cleaning work by dipping there accessories and other parts into warm soapy water. You need to know that the hot temperature of the water is a good way of disinfecting.
    • Make sure your staff [erforms the above tasks at least once every day.
    • Remember not just cleaning, disinfecting every nook and corner of your commercial kitchen is mandatory.
    • Plan well before recruiting old staff members or new ones. Don’t crowd your kitchen as before. You can schedule their jobs in shifts to accommodate maximum servings.
    • Ask your staff about how can you best operate the kitchen area because they are the ones who lead all food prep jobs.
    • Before using stationary or movable surface boards, make sure they are thoroughly disinfected with a commercial-grade medium.
    • Separate vegetarian preps from non-vegetarian ones to avoid infection from food.
    • Gas stoves with burners, commercial ovens, commercial grills- all need to be disinfected thoroughly on a daily basis. The grease on these equipments might turn into breeding grounds of bacteria.
    • The touchpoints in your commercial kitchen like fridge door handles, trays, racks and shelves should be disinfected as your staff does come in contact while taking trips.
    • If you are expecting new commercial kitchen equipment, make sure your commercial kitchen equipment supplier is following all safety and hygiene guidelines while delivering.
    • Once the new delivery is in your food work area, a through sanitisation job should be performed.
    • Make sure the equipment delivery guy also follows the guidelines you have set while installation of the equipment. Seek advice from them too.
    • You must be following some cleaning schedules before the pandemic. Now convert them to stringent sanitisation programs and make sure they are adhered to.
    • Do not forget to disinfect the floor regularly through a disinfectant spray.
    • Your exhaust system in the kitchen should be well operated and serviced.
    • Raw materials- Ensure all your vendors are following regular hygiene practices so that infection is not communicated.

Pro-tip: Invest your time and a little saved money in the digital presence of your brand. Get your social handlers going. Seek suggestions from professionals so that you have a vision what needs to be done at what point of time. For eg. If you plan to run a re-open drive on Facebook in a month from now, you need content and visual graphics ready to float from this moment. This is the time when you can be lighting in the mind of the people like billboards. 

  • Ways to propel your income
    • Try to turn on to take away and delivery ways of serving food. Not all will be able to accommodate dine-in. So you can facilitate drive-through orders along with online ordering and takeaway.
    • Start sending out gift cards digitally. This will induce cash flow in your business and would start shaping the minds of the customers.
    • Market your re-opening exclusively. Send out personalised emails, text messages, and so on.
    • Make professional videos of the changes you have made in your premises. Go live. Inform them at home that they have refuge outside the house as well.
    • Post them campaigns to come and check out your safety guidelines and interact with the staff at safe distances. Your actions will roar with commitments and trust.
    • Ask them to drop feedbacks and make sure you have acknowledged the same.
    • Float your social media handlers with pictures of customers sitting inside your premises (of course seek permission first from the guest) and ask them for feedback.
    • Offer work from home lunch with your speciality preparation so that even if they are not coming to the restaurant, you can earn by delivering to the community who is trying to meet goals from their homes.
    • Send out discounted snacks to essential service providers on a self-assigned day through your staff. If they carry your brand name on their tees, that would not only market your brand but ould bring in some necessary cash too. Go live on social media with such campaigns. This will encourage people to come out and help other communities in need by buying your menu items.  
    • Ask your chief chef to think and arrange online classes for special recipes. This will fetch you some audience who would like to physically visit your restaurant and maybe buy your food.
    • If possible, go for kitchen sharing. This would divide the costs and the inventory will be utilised to the best.  

You have already been through a lot while your shutters were down. Now its time to lift them with a new innovative business that will not only float you through the pandemic but will also propagate many norms which will we need to follow for long.