The pervasive presence of Covid-19 in our society for the foreseeable future and beyond will necessitate substantial changes in social behaviour. As a race the Irish are renowned worldwide as social beings, great in company, and happiest in groups. Ingrained in our culture is the pub, and dining out. How do our societal norms look and work alongside Covid-19 social distancing requirements, and how does this translate to the business of the hospitality industry and pubs and restaurants, what changes can we expect to see and have to make?
Front of house changes
Cleaning schedules will need to be much more thorough and detailed and hospitality businesses should be telling potential and actual customers about this at every touchpoint; on the premises, on the menu, on the walls, on the website and through social media. It is time for at least the duration of 2020 to make cleaning really obvious and highly visible. What would have seemed “over the top” in 2019 will be reassuring in 2020 and beyond. In January cleaning was done when customers were not present, in our Covid-19 world your customers will be reassured to see it being done.
Tables
Everyone now is well aware that when bars and restaurants reopen social distancing measures will be a way of life. Now is the time to evaluate all the floorspace in your business. Maybe you have a separate room or space that you formerly used only when you were busy, or not at all? If so, now is the time to make sure that it looks its best and is ready for use. A good idea right now is to plan these possible layouts. Do you need somewhere to store surplus tables and chairs? Or will you just mark tables as “not in use”? If you choose this, will they be bare or empty or decorated in some way? If the last, then what with? This is going to affect the “look of the room”.
Table items
…may well need to change drastically as they can be possible sources of transmission. Anything that more than one person can touch should be considered for changing. So condiment sets will have to go. Single use portions will have to be in place. Perhaps we might even see customers bringing their own salt and pepper sets! Alongside the ketchup and mustard you may want to place a bottle of hand sanitiser.
Menus and wine lists
… that are handled by different customers are another no-no. Ordering apps are a solution that need your urgent attention. The first thing to do is to have your menus and wine list printed on single-use paper. Paper, disposal menus, will no longer be found only in quick serve burger and pizza restaurants but will feature across the industry. If you are going to go down this route, you need to get them designed now. Also upload your menus to your website and social media. Customers can simply look them up when they are in the restaurant. Have the web address prominently displayed so that your customers can find them. If you have the customer’s email address, e.g. from an online booking, you can send the menu and wine list to them. If you have a reservation system you can quite likely automate this process.
Hand sanitiser
You will have to have hand sanitiser available but very likely it will be the new normal for people to carry their own hand sanitiser. Perhaps you could sell your own branded ones?
Cutlery
…obviously cannot be gotten rid of but should be served in paper wrappers after being sterilised either in the dishwasher or an alternative sterilising device. Studies on both SARS and MERS show that UV light could halt the spread of these viruses, so it’s not unreasonable to expect that it will have a similar effect on COVID-19.
Wine glasses and bottles
…hanging them above the bar is no longer be the best place for them now… Restaurants need to go back to storing them in cupboards. And again, overt flamboyant sterilisation might become the new norm. And wine bottles will need to be wiped down by wine waiters after the first pour, don’t expect customers to appreciate the waiter handling the bottle for repeated pours!
Payments
…you will need to go cashless and contactless, more so than has ever been seen in the past. If customers’ credit cards have to be entered into the machine then both card and machine should be wiped or sprayed down with sanitiser before and after use.
Toilets
How will customers open toilet doors? You will want to provide tissues or gloves outside bathrooms so that customers can open the doors without touching the handles with their bare hands. And don’t forget bins for the tissues to be disposed in. The same goes for customers going out of the bathroom! Print and frame notices about this.
In the long run you will want to install sensor taps on the sinks and toilet flushes that don’t have to be touched. Expect these to become the new normal everywhere.
Air conditioning
This is a worry. The authors of a Chinese study done in April 2020 wrote:
“We conclude that in this outbreak, droplet transmission was prompted by air-conditioned ventilation. The key factor for infection was the direction of the airflow. The guests “upwind” and the staff weren’t affected while the guests “downwind” were. You might want to switch off the aircon if present in your premises.
Your people
You will need to have processes in place to check the temperature of and look out for respiratory symptoms of employees, and ensure that those who have visited Covid-19 affected countries or regions are not at work.
You should have in place processes to conduct temperature checking and look out for respiratory symptoms such as cough or runny nose or shortness of breath of employees twice daily. Those who are unwell with temperature of 38 degree Celsius or higher, and/or display respiratory symptoms should be advised to seek immediate medical attention. The same thing will have to apply to suppliers who enter your building.
Expect too that face masks will be required; get ahead of the guidance and ensure that all your team have ample supplies.
Kitchen – “Goods in”
You will need have a think about how delivery people are interacting with your business. Can you set up a “reception area” where deliveries are left in a contactless fashion?
Kitchen workflows
Can you physically change the layout of your kitchen to allow stations to work “alone” and minimise interaction, i.e. be socially distant?
Can all stations work “alone” and then deliver to a finishing / plating station? If all your people are immune this may become redundant, but in the short term this will be important for the safety of your staff and your ability to retain them. This might mean adjusting your menu now to eliminate production processes that cause unnecessary crossover of people.
Delivery / Collection
As has been seen over the past few weeks Delivery and Collection is going to be much more popular post lockdown. One big question will be whether to do it yourself or partner up with Deliveroo / JustEat etc. and their fees?
How about talking to other restaurateurs now about the possibility of setting up jointly shared kitchen space? One pizza guy, one Thai, one Indian, one burger guy, one sushi guy, and maybe you have a viable model for a shared “ghost” kitchen in your area dedicated to delivery and collection. Probably one of you is going to have surplus space.
So what is a publican and restaurateur to do?
There is a lot to think about, so the advice is clearly to “get started” immediately! Nobody is pretending it is going to be easy coming out of this and so much depends on how well our politicians put fixes in place for the macro systematic problems, but it is the hospitality businesses who have prepared that are the ones who are going to be best placed to survive and succeed.
We have recently seen a customisable, adaptable, scalable table ordering and management app which is suitable for pubs and restaurants at a low cost €180 per month. On this app you can add your logo’s and branding, as well as menus for food and drink, add meal suggestions, suggest wines to accompany mains, and have your customers rapidly order direct from table to kitchen without the risk of close up staff engagement. Technology such as this will be expected by customers and vital for businesses going forward; if you would like to find out more about this, and other developments in the industry, contact us directly without delay!
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