Evaluate new revenue streams

If you stayed open for off-premise service, or turned your restaurant into a market or meal-kit shop, now is the time to take stock of how those efforts affected your bottom line. Ask yourself:

1. How much revenue did they drive?
2. Was there a particular program that worked better than expected?
3. Consider how you might incorporate these ad-hoc services to normal business operations—you’ve already built the revenue stream, after all.

Identify excess costs

One potential silver lining of the pandemic is that it may have revealed elements of your business that aren’t as essential as you thought. Ask yourself:

1. How did your fixed and variable costs change during the pandemic?
2. Are there front of house/back of house positions, equipment rentals, or subscriptions you can do without?
3. Can you work with your purveyors to find the right products for the applications you need to restart?

Set check-ins

The landscape is shifting rapidly, and you’re going to be more busy than ever. Schedule regular P&L reviews at shorter-than-normal intervals so you can adapt as necessary if conditions change.

Assess your cash needs

As you plan to reopen, estimate your operating expenses to determine how much cash you’ll need to run your business for the startup period.

1. Estimate all your operating expenses, including payroll, food costs, rent, utilities, subscriptions, and insurance.
2. Calculate your estimated income. Include off-premise, bar, dine-in, and any other income sources.
3. Make sure that between the cash you already have at hand (if any), and your estimated income you will have enough cash to cover all your expenses. If necessary, consider applying for a loan, grant, or credit.

Resources + Links

Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS)

Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB)

Gordon Food Service COVID-19 Canada resources page

Restaurants Canada: Navigating COVID-19

Prepare your kitchen

Operators will need to prioritize sanitation and cleaning above all else. Clean equipment, surfaces, walk-ins, appliances, doors and handles, and any other surface staff and guests come into contact with. Schedule hood cleaning if hired out. Beyond cleaning, ensure your kitchen is stocked with cleaning supplies and equipment to keep your staff safe.

Once the kitchen and dining room are properly cleaned and sanitized, take stock of what inventory is still available, and begin to prepare your order with your food distributor. See below for guidelines on preparing an opening menu.

Lastly, ensure all equipment is working properly and perform or schedule maintenance as needed.

Reset your dining room entrance

Sanitization of the kitchen is only the first step, as one can imagine. The dining room will be just as important, and optics will matter. Clean and sanitize menus, stations throughout the restaurant, and ensure glassware, silverware, dish wash is spotless to provide guests with a sense of cleanliness and safety. Clean bathrooms from top to bottom. Scrub floors, wash window sand doors, and clear any debris from the outside of your establishment.

Think about how guests can literally see your sanitation practices and procedures by setting up signs that communicate processes to staff and customers, with stations throughout the operation.You may also want to consider increasing bathroom cleanliness procedures during re-opening.

But cleanliness is only the first step. The set-up of your dining room will be just as important to reimagine and adjust.Consumers will be timid about dining out, and space will make them feel more comfortable. It’s more than likely that traffic will continue to be down for several months, so take this time to space out tables and barstools to CDC recommendations, as well as putting fewer people at larger tables, if possible. If you don’t have space to move chairs and tables out of your dining space, consider putting “reserved” signs on every other table, so diners know where not to sit.

Rebuild trust with your customers by establishing comprehensive employee health policies, instituting stringent sanitation practices, and implementing new social distancing tactics.

A. Healthy Space

1. Deep clean entire back and front of house with Covid-19 Sanitation Kit (clean nightly while open)
2. Disinfect high-contact areas like knobs, handles, and switches (every 2 hours while open)
3. Revisit dining room layout to convert community spaces and increase distance between tables
4. Establish designated areas for delivery pick up and takeout

B. Safe Food

1. Ensure the quality of food stored pre-covid (e.g. check expiration dates, throw out spoiled food)
2. Deep clean food contact surfaces (ongoing and per health and safety guidelines)
3. Deep clean food and beverage equipment (e.g. ice machine)
4. Re-stock inventory from trusted suppliers and wipe down packaging
5. Be extra vigilant about preparing food to appropriate temperatures

C. Healthy Staff

1. Update and communicate paid sick leave policies
2. Adopt the “We don’t work sick” mindset
3. Retrain staff on new sanitation procedures
4. Limit bare-hand contact with food and customers
5. Enforce regular hand washing (hourly)
6. Maintain adequate distance in food prep areas

C. Healthy Experience

1. Consider increasing open hours and limiting capacity
2. Turn your regular events into virtual experiences
3. Install hand sanitizers at entrances, registers, and bathrooms
4. Adopt a cashless policy and enable mobile-pay only solutions
5. For takeout and fast casual, encourage order ahead and offer no-contact pick-up

Consumer behaviors have been deeply impacted by the crisis, and some of changes we are seeing today will likely continue for months until a feeling of “normal” returns. Be prepared to adapt your service to new diner needs:

Fear of public spaces: More consumers will be weary of infection in the coming months. Expectations around social distancing will be carried on to public spaces even after some restrictions are lifted.

Increased vigilance over hygiene: Most consumers will become intolerant of lapses in hygiene from servers, kitchen staff, and other diners.

Limited spending: Many diners will be affected by the economic impact of the pandemic. They will likely seek affordable options when possible, and will likely pass on expensive choices. Those not on a budget will be willing to spend on items that reduce risks and exposure and contribute to their wellness.

Increased digital interactions: Consumers are using digital tools to order food, interact with friends and family, host virtual happy hours, and take virtual classes. After the crisis they will expect the restaurants they visit to be as tech savvy as they are.

Increased take-out, delivery, and home-prepared meals: General grocery spending continues to climb, as well as at-home entertainment activities, consumers will form new habits around this, and will still seek it occasionally after the crisis.

Desire to connect: Consumers are feeling isolated, and miss socializing despite quickly adapting to utilize technology and connecting more with friends and family.Desire to help: Many diners are willing to spend money on things that are contributing to the greater good—what they deem as providing hope or contributing to others.

These behaviors mean that health, safety, and hygiene will be top of mind, more than ever before, and not only for customers, but for staff. You will need to consider these behaviors within your operations, messaging, training, and onboarding.

This is a great time to start thinking about what your offerings should include once dine-in service resumes. Work with your chef to identify items that were underperforming before the pandemic, and consider taking this opportunity to replace them—or cut them entirely. If you’re adding new revenue streams, use this time to develop the connection between those new offerings and your existing on-premise items.

You will need to evaluate your menu and cater it to accommodate for a slow ramp-up (at first), different diner expectations, and new buying behaviors. There are a few things to consider when thinking about your reopening menu: the dishes you’ll offer, the ways diners will buy from you, and the cost of the dishes.

As more restaurants begin planning to reopen their dining rooms, a key question will be how to bring staff back online. Safety and hygiene, payroll, rehiring, training, and scheduling will have to be sorted out. This may also be a good time to reassess your team structure and management approach.

Forget standard marketing channels. They’re costly, and because consumers are at home, your focus should be on digital channels.If you haven’t been maintaining a presence online, now is the time to get going. If you have, now it’s time to generate hype and excitement about your return. Regardless of where you are in your journey, experts do tell us that during crises, advertising is one thing NOT to reduce. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money, either.