It seems like it was just yesterday when you welcomed this year with optimism and excitement. Your restaurant was doing very well last year. So for this year, you planned on renovating the whole place. You wanted to make the ambiance more intimate and cozy. Designs were already made and everything was falling into place. But, COVID-19 happened. All plans are now going down the drain. It is an unfortunate event for everyone. However, the silver lining of this is that your business can still operate. If there’s something constant in this world, aside from change, it would be everyone’s need to eat. Though most of us are shaken because of COVID-19, we still have to eat to survive.

As a restaurant owner, you’re now responsible for ensuring that the food you serve is safe. Aside from that, you also need to take into consideration the safety of your employees and consumers. Below are the best practices on how to operate your restaurant during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Employees’ Health and Personal Hygiene

You should start by regularly checking your employees’ health status. Before they can enter the vicinity, prescreen must be done such as checking their temperatures. Any signs or symptoms associated with COVID-19 should be reported. The sick employee should also be sent home immediately. They must be advised as well to consult the local health department.

Cleaning and disinfecting the frequently touched surfaces in the workplace should also be done regularly. Employees must work 6 feet apart from each other. Always observe social distancing even in the workplace. Provide face masks to your employees.

Apart from the face masks, alcohol-based sanitizers must be readily available. You can also start the shift by reminding your employees of the importance of hand-washing. They should also be reminded of the correct way of washing their hands.


Operations in your Restaurant

In the kitchen, employees should continue observing the proper way of handling food and food safety protocols. Utensils and dish-ware must be washed, rinsed, and sanitized every after use.

Reassessing your current set-up must also be done. As a restaurant owner, you have to encourage social distancing. You can start by stopping the “dine-in” service and just do take-outs. It might be difficult to observe for the people lining inside and/or outside of your restaurant. To solve this, you can put marks on the floor that would be at least 6ft apart from each other. This would serve as a guide for the customers when lining up. There should also be different doors for entrance and exit. To limit the people coming to your restaurant, you can install a two-way SadoTech Starpoint or Crosspoint Base models. This way you are notified that there’s a customer waiting outside. You can also notify the customers outside that they can already come inside. To avoid confusion, you can assign different tones for each signal.

The SadoTech doorbells can also be used in notifying the people in the kitchen about the order. A doorbell corresponds to a certain order and then you can assign a specific tone for each order.

Sanitizers must also be accessible to customers. They can be put near the doorknobs, doorbells, on the counter, and on the surfaces that are frequently touched.

You’ve already been practicing the proper way of handling food and food safety protocols even before. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, you have to heighten all safety procedures. This is to ensure that you provide the best service to your customers. At the same time, minimize the transmission of the virus between your staff and customers.