What Restaurants Should Expect When Reopening Post-COVID

The global pandemic of 2020 hit the world like a ton of bricks. It rushed through countries, devastating every industry, and its effects have lingered for over a year. We all know that the industry that got hit particularly hard was the restaurants. As a restaurant owner, you were forced to restructure your business model and adapt in ways you never expected to stay afloat. In 2021, a new challenge emerged: the pandemic is ending. 

COVID-19 brought about many significant changes, and as the country begins to reopen, we have to wonder which changes will stay and which will fade away. Let’s explore what restaurant owners should expect when reopening post-COVID and what you can do to ensure it goes off without a hitch.

Staff Changes

There have been many unsung heroes throughout the pandemic, especially in the restaurant industry. You and your staff were considered essential workers, and in addition to worrying about whether your business would stay open, you were also concerned about your team’s safety every day. As the country and world reopen, you may notice a significant shift in your staff. 

Some employees will be eager to return to everyday life, whereas others might hesitate to change things. Either way, the best thing you can do for your team, and by default, your business, is to support them through this transitional period. After all, a company is only as strong as its people. You can support your team in many ways, including understanding when there is a lack of childcare, respecting their interest in continuing to wear masks despite lifting mask mandates, or even detailing how things will change. 

A Return to In-Person Dining

Most major cities have begun to ease restrictions, if not end them entirely. This means in-person dining will be an option for those looking to revive date nights or friendly get-togethers over dinner. As this plays out, you must be prepared for shifts in customer preferences. It may mean beefing up some of your processes and toning down others.
According to the Huffington Post, even with restaurants having the green light to return to pre-pandemic operations, you shouldn’t expect customers to start packing in to dine in-house. Customers will be reluctant to dine indoors, within proximity to others, even if they’ve gotten vaccinated. Set your expectations for it to take months, if not years, for patrons to recover from the effects of COVID-19 emotionally. 

Online ordering, contactless delivery, and curbside pickup will remain the ways to dine, with the return to in-house dining on a slow but steady incline. However, you can take steps to encourage customers to come inside. One such method is to offer promotional discounts. You can also highlight safer dining options like continuing to operate at less than the CDC-approved capacity indoors to maintain social distancing standards.

Keep a Robust Online Delivery Presence

It will take months, if not years, for the popularity of delivery and services like curbside pickup to wind down. That means your business needs to continue providing customers with stellar delivery options while maintaining full-service dining with superior service. MG2 research revealed that 75% of people plan to continue using curbside pickup after the pandemic, and 31% are unwilling to consider dining indoors. 

Continuing to offer full-service delivery while opening your indoor dining to total capacity will be a lot for your staff to balance, so you must restructure your business to provide them with as much support as possible. A great way to support your team and make their jobs a bit easier is to implement a superior omnichannel restaurant management tool like Deliverect. With it, you can integrate all of your orders, including online orders, into your existing POS and streamline the process for both the front and back of house. 

Deliverect works with available third-party services like GrubHub with fewer errors or complications than other platforms currently on the market. Support your staff by investing in a system that will carry you even past the pandemic and save you time and money along the way. If you want to learn more about our software, contact our team.

Be Prepared for Peculiar Restrictions

Every state’s reopening is different, and depending on where you live and operate, you must be prepared for the idea that your restaurant’s in-person service may never be the same. Like all major events throughout history, the global pandemic left public health officials, and everyone else impacted scrambling to update policies and best practices. 

The California Public Health Director recently recommended that when restaurants reopen post-COVID, waitstaff should serve food wearing gloves, and all menus should be disposable. Unfortunately, it kills the ambiance and cheapens the experience, right?

These are just a few of the many changes suggested nationwide to prevent any diseases or viruses from spreading. This is something your restaurant should expect when reopening post-COVID. The appeal of in-person dining used to be the atmosphere, interaction, and ambiance of the restaurant and its staff. Without that and the continued fear of being in close contact with other individuals, it might be challenging to return to pre-pandemic conditions. The best way for your restaurant to overcome this is to be understanding and find innovative ways to reassure patrons and let them know their concerns get heard.

Deliverect

This past year was challenging for everyone across the board. Restaurants faced significant setbacks and survived the pandemic, continuing to revise and adapt. At Deliverect, we aim to help you create customized solutions to help your restaurant run successfully, inside and outside the restaurant. If you are interested in optimizing your delivery platforms or have questions about our omnichannel programs, call us today.