Covid-19: Impact on local restaurants?

[Robin Garr]

Covid-19 is going to be rough on the restaurant community. How are local eateries handling it?

Here are some suggestions from Plate Magazine​:

Here’s What You Should Communicate to Your Customers About Coronavirus

Another concern would be if they begin cancelling Derby events. That's two weeks of lost revenue. I'm sure other board members can more accurately describe what that means for restaurants. I've always though Derby in Louisville is for restaurants what Christmas is for retailers.

[Robin Garr]

Too true, Tim. I don't know if it's exaggerated, but I've heard that two weeks of Derby can cover the other 50 weeks of the year.

[Robin Garr]

Here's a bullet-point summary if you can't get through the registration:

Here’s What You Should Communicate to Your Customers About Coronavirus
Chandra Ram March 11, 2020
Chicago

What you can do immediately is communicate openly and transparently to your customers.

Tell your customers what you and your team are doing to keep the restaurant clean.

Make hand sanitizer available in bathrooms, at registers, host stands, POS machines and anyplace multiple people are touching a screen or sharing pens. Maybe even have servers offer it to guests at the table.

That discreet sign you have in the bathroom about employees washing their hands? Make it bigger. Even better, make it entertaining.

I really hope you have a decent paid sick leave policy in place for your employees. Now is the time to share that information with your customers. Customers need to be reassured that the people who are sick are not cooking and serving their food out of the real fear of losing a paycheck.

Remind your customers to cancel reservations if they decide they aren't going out.
Ask them to consider buying gift cards to use after things return to normal (or normal-ish).

Eliminate printed menus and wine lists (or print single-use menus) and shared condiment bottles, so guests don't have to touch something that's been handled over and over again.

Ask your customers to be open and honest with you if they feel sick or test positive, even if it's days after they dine with you. You need this information; trust works both ways.

Note that a lot of your customers are working from home. If there is a way to safely let them work from your restaurant, tell them about the set-up, including wifi access and what you have on offer for them to eat and drink.

Also, now is a good time to add daytime food delivery, and increase all-day and nighttime delivery. Extra points if you can offer no-contact delivery to further eliminate interaction between customers and delivery people (but make sure they can still tip for delivery when they order).

Kill the buffet. No one wants it.

Consider bringing social distancing to your restaurant by cutting tables and creating space.

If something happens, be open and honest with your customers; don't let them find out on the news.

Follow the hashtag #covidrestaurantstrategy started by Chef Matthew Jennings to share news and ideas on Twitter. Be safe. We are all in this together.

If, as experts are predicting, peak hospitalization won’t be until May, then this goes way beyond just missing Derby. That would be such a dire, sustained collapse in demand that the survival of all sorts of small businesses would be far out of the hands of the average restaurant/bar/coffeeshop enthusiast. We are going to have to have something more dramatic, like Congress declaring a moratorium on rent for small businesses (in addition to mandatory paid sick leave). The Italian government has declared a moratorium on mortgage payments, so this isn’t so far-fetched. Give us two more weeks like this past one and I bet it will be conventional wisdom.

Cite on pubic health expert consensus on peak hospitalization not arriving until May:

https://works.bepress.com/mcandrew/1/

[Robin Garr]

Helpful (and worrisome) info, Iggy. Thanks!

Helpful (and worrisome) info, Iggy. Thanks!

I’ve read that in China, meals that get delivered come with a receipt that includes both the temperature of the chef as well as the delivery guy. Maybe that’s a step we could take to encourage demand.

Some buffets in Chicago are putting hand sanitizer at each end of the buffet, and others have gone so far as to give patrons exam gloves along with their clean plates!

In the past week I have received around 40 emails from restaurants who had "collected" my email address from my dining there, all notifying me about steps they are taking regarding Covid-19.

One that I had not considered: Subway is starting to give you a clean paper cup if you want seconds of pop, to stop customers from putting used cups against the ice machine or soda nozzles.

This will be a challenge. I hate to say it, but we are in a truly game-changing environment that will test most common business models, at least for the short term. Damn, I wish we hadn't dismantled some forward-looking Obama initiatives. I REALLY don't mean that to be a political statement.

[Robin Garr]

One suggestion I've heard as a way to help your local restaurants if you're social distancing for now: Buy gift certs. Save them to use later, while the restaurant gets the cash flow now.

From the Ramen House Facebook page. I wonder how many other restaurants will do the same.

To all our customers:
sorry for any inconvenience but we are closed.
Due to the state of emergency from the Corona virus, we are protecting our employees and our customers from the chance of catching or spreading this virus.
Again, sorry for any inconvenience.

It may be time to run a "free roll of toilet paper with the purchase of each adult meal" promotion to boost sales.

Actually, I think certain places will do fine. I was at Clay Oven for lunch today and they had a normal crowd. They aren't influenced either way by tourism. I also had to grab a pizza at Papa Johns for the little guys. The place was hopping.

I was at Clay Oven for lunch today and they had a normal crowd. They aren't influenced either way by tourism.

Clay Oven is doing large scale promoting ... I've gotten 3-4 emails from then in the past week or so, all promoting their cleanliness.

We had lunch at District 6 yesterday. Got there at 1:00. They were plenty busy. Hand sanitizer at the host podium and on the bar. One employee seemed to be tasked with wiping things down throughout the dining room.

I saw an article somewhere yesterday (WaPo? NYT?) pointing out that in most cases, even under "normal" circumstances, restaurants are among the cleanest public places.

I don't know if the non-chain restaurants can survive, but it seems like their best hope is to move to a delivery model. Whether it's delivering to people's cars in the parking lot or their houses in their neighborhood.