5 Safety Precautions Restaurants Should Take With COVID-19

Most restaurant owners are eager to get back in the business after mandatory shut-downs due to the COVID-19 crisis, which left owners with no way of making money and employees out of work. As restrictions begin to lift and dining out is slowly coming back, the main concern now for many restaurant owners is to ensure that their eatery is a safe place for diners to be, to encourage them to visit and order food and drinks. Here are some things that you can do to build that trust with your customers and ensure that their health and safety is your top priority. 

Number Restrictions

Avoiding crowds is one of the best ways to avoid COVID19 – and you can help your customers do this by restricting the number of people allowed in your restaurant at any one time. You can do this by reducing the number of tables inside your restaurant and asking diners to make a booking before they arrive. This might mean that you are required to take less money at any time, but the fact it will keep your customers safer will encourage them to choose your restaurant over the others. 

Social Distancing

Another reason to reduce the number of tables available in your restaurant is so that you can enforce social distancing rules. As per government guidelines, people should stay six feet apart from one another when outdoors unless they are from the same household. Depending on how your restaurant is set up, this could mean blocking off every other table or reducing the number of tables available so that customers can remain a safe distance apart when eating. 

Install Guards

Installing guards like the SneezeGuardEZ is a great way to add extra protection for both your customers and your staff. You can install them in areas where it is impossible to put customers six feet or more apart to provide an additional safety barrier. If you have a bar, guards up in between your staff and customers will help to prevent any physcial contact between them, and they can also be used in between tables to offer extra protection. 

Table Service

Rather than having customers go up to the bar to order, providing table service alone can be a much safer alternative. This ensures that customers are kept seated at their tables rather than moving around the restaurant and reduces the amount of contact that they have with both members of staff and other customers. 

Deep Cleaning

Of course, cleaning is crucial in the restaurant industry but during the time of COVID19, it’s even more essential than ever. Tables and chairs should be completely deep cleaned and disinfected in between each diner and it’s worth putting plastic covers on menus so that they can be cleaned too. Provide hand sanitizer to your guests and make sure that your employees are washing their hands thoroughly on a regular basis. 

After restaurants were forced to shut down to stop the spread of COVID19, many restaurant owners are eager to start serving customers again – but things look a little different with safety coming first.