Casual dining chains winning over Covid-19 loss: A restaurateur's guide to overcome Covid obstacle

The pandemic has already taken a big toll on the socio-economic facets and the restaurant industry is one such sector that has taken the brunt at the most. While many restaurateurs found solace in home delivery option, I believe dine-in is something that makes a very crucial part of a food and beverage industry. And although difficult, the right strategies can surely pave through the way of combating this difficult period.

Below are some necessary guidelines that can be a restaurateur’s outlook for overcoming the Covid-19 Loss:

Also Read: Kolkata-based Chowman enters Bengaluru, opens first cloud kitchen

Shifting the Focus to Delivery: This pandemic might have been difficult, but unlike the previous year, allowance for delivery and takeaway services is one big factor which prevented the restaurants from falling flat on the face. My personal experience witnessed a big bend with the shifting of focus to delivery. Compared to normal times we saw a booming of delivery demands by 50%, incurring a big profit on us. Proper promotional feat that can ensure customers’ of proper sanitization while delivering, abiding by the no-touch protocol were the primary lookout. For our brand, we were employing part time people to meet up the exceeding delivery demands. A huge delivery fleet backed up by a back-office team with unmatched quality are few of the first things to consider.

Health and Hygiene of the staffs: Honesty towards one’s customer is of utmost priority. Not just for the safety of our customers but further ensuring staff hygiene falls under the first few to-dos to abide by. For us, the first thing we did was get all our staffs vaccinated as soon as the initial restaurant protocol was declared by the government. Moreover, stocking up necessary medicine, gloves, headcaps, masks, oximeter and thermal guns, providing relief are some of the essentials that one must keep a track of while operating in this time of concern.

Touch-less dine-in protocols: With dine-in services growing gradually in different places it is necessary to adopt a stringent no-touch policy with added measures to combat the Covid 19 losses. In our case, re-emergence of Covid was not unforeseen. Months before lockdown was imposed, we were already prepared with touch-less menu, QR codes and other tools that could ensure a better dine-in experience for our customers. Thorough maintenance, cleaning and repetitive scrutiny is a must to pace up to a certain stature to confront the covid loss.

May Interest: "Contactless dining is here to stay", says Sanjay Mahtani of Hard Rock cafe

Exclusive delivery service: For those who have their own delivery services, it can be super beneficial to support the customer base with authentic services rather than those relying on a third party delivery app. In our case, with over 500 bikers, our exclusive Chowman app it became more convenient to reach to our trusted customers. Infact their trust in our uncompromised method of production is what encouraged us into updating and improvising on a better delivery module intending to connect and reach our customers faster and better.