Restaurant Business Survival Without Dine-In.

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With the newest CDC recommendations reducing gatherings to <10 persons, and an ever-growing number of states banning restaurant dine-ins, it is vital that restaurants explore business continuity and operations through take-out, delivery or drive-through modes (which, as of March 17, 2020, is still allowed). At the time same, businesses must assure and practice social distancing to keep both their workers and customers safe.

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Below are a few recommendations for ensuring business continuity while keeping your workforce and employees safe:

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1. Utilizing drive-through is likely the best option for food acquirement. Drive-through operations create a natural distance between workers and customers. Additionally, it is easiest to keep food at safe temperatures. Unfortunately, many dine-in restaurants don not have these capabilities.

2. Some restaurants are implementing curbside pick-up. Again, this can be a viable option to maintain social distancing while keeping workers employed.

3. Delivery, by employees, can be a good option. This may help keep more employees employed. Before enacting such a policy, be sure to check with your insurance provider, review corporate policies, etc.

   1. It is best to require advance payment by credit card. Drivers should not enter homes and should maintain distance at and during delivery. Remind drivers of the importance of hand-washing.

4. Direct take-out can be the most problematic, as you don’t want guests congregating in your restaurant waiting for food. Thus, contact-less pick-up that does not enable customers to enter the facility beyond the doorway area is recommended. You can create contact-less pickup by setting up a table barrier between worker and customer. To maintain social distancing, worker on the inside will pass the food across the table to the customer on the other side. It is ideal to require pre-payment. However, if your register/check-out is located near the door, the table could be set up nearby.

5. Food safety is of utmost importance; please consider food temperature maintenance. One option is to give specific times for pick-up (as pizza places currently do). Food is then kept at-temperature in the kitchen until the hand-off or pick-up time nears. Additionally, food temperatures when prepared and when picked-up/delivered can be recorded on the package to provide proof of temperature maintenance.

Over the next days we will continue to provide thoughts, advice, and best practices on optimizing the situation, and ensuring you have the critical infrastructure in place for business survival.