For the restaurant industry to get back to serving up tasty dishes of all kinds to an eager public, they need to reestablish credibility that it’s safe to eat there. While wearing face masks is possible in retail stores and some other businesses, doing so inside a restaurant is impractical. Therefore, the restaurant industry must put together a collection of measures and changes in work practices to ensure the safety of everyone. Here are some suggestions about how to go about doing that.
Install Safety Guards Between Eating Areas
A reconfiguration of dining areas is required to create separation between each diner’s booth or every restaurant table to intentionally keep separate diners apart. A product such as the Plexiglass see-through barriers available at sneezeguardez.com creates an artificial separation between couples or groups. This way, should someone be asymptomatic, they’ll be far less likely to infect other people in the restaurant or café.
Also, consider how people will safely move around within the establishment. What path will they follow to avoid getting too close to other tables or booths when either entering or filing out after their meal? How will they maintain a safe distance on washroom breaks, or walking up for drink refills too? Plan for all of this.
Retrain the Serving and Kitchen Staff
All staff need to be advised that they’re required to socially distance. For the customer-facing staff, employees must distance as much as possible. However, they also need to guide new customers on how to distance safely and follow the rules within the restaurant. By communicating what’s expected of them, it will help everyone enjoy their dining experience more.
For the kitchen staff, distancing is harder in some ways. It may be necessary to have fewer staff working to allow them to keep space apart. In which case, the restaurant won’t be able to handle as many tables turns as before. Restaurants need to combine fewer diners with takeout order capacity while employing fewer staff.
Encouraging Takeout Orders and Deliveries
To reduce the risk of infection, even when restaurants are open for diners to eat a meal there, they should still push takeout orders too. By offering to provide takeout meals, it prevents you from being overbooked or having a Friday night or weekend rush. Dividing up the restaurant customers between diners and takeout orders ensures established safety routines don’t get overlooked due to crowding which has been a major issue lately.
Maintain Food Hygiene Too
Food hygiene is not something that any restaurant or café can afford to lose focus on when tending to other concerns. It must always remain uppermost in the mind of the staff. Cleaning down the kitchen after service is just as important as ever. Maintaining any walk-in cold storage facilities, keeping frozen produce separate from fresh, and ensuring a safe storage to avoid contamination issues is paramount. When food standards slip here, it’s very difficult to rescue the injured reputation of the eatery from there.
To get diners back into the restaurants and cafés, it’s necessary to convince people that it’s safe to return. By implementing safety measures and new procedures, it goes a long way to doing exactly that.
