How to Layout Your Restaurant after COVID-19
With the advent of the pandemic, making necessary layout changes to your restaurant is vital to its survival and eventual success. It reduces the chances of your restaurant becoming a hotspot, reduces worry for your customers, and ensures that there are minimal hiccups to your business’s operations. As a result, you can ensure that your business thrives in the long term, despite the challenging circumstances.
COVID-19 has affected various businesses and lives across the globe, and the restaurant industry has had to face a difficult time ever since it came in full swing. Because of the fear of contracting the virus, many people are choosing not to dine out. As a result, many restaurant businesses have been forced to shut down due to the significant lack of business. Therefore, now that significant research has been conducted on how to deal with the virus, taking necessary COVID-19 safety measures for restaurants can enable enterprises to stay alive in this competitive industry.
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How to Layout Your Restaurant After COVID-19
One of the measures to account for COVID is to make appropriate changes to your restaurant business’s layout. Therefore, you must ensure that people are seated far apart enough from other customers, there are barriers in the premises, and sanitisation stations are on the mark.
Here’s how to layout your restaurant after COVID-19 and take it closer towards success.
Remove Tables to Incorporate Social Distancing
One important reason customers choose not to dine out after COVID is because they don’t want to be close to people (who could potentially carry the virus). Therefore, you must incorporate social distancing so that customers at each table are away from others.
You could make social distancing a possibility by reducing your restaurant’s capacity to about half of its original. Mark some seats or tables as unavailable or remove them altogether, depending on your restaurant’s original layout. If you have space available outside your restaurant, try to seat guests there as well. This way, you can practice social distancing without making a significant change in overall capacity.
To further reduce the effect of social distancing on your capacity, include a rooftop set-up in your floor plan if that’s available. Whether indoors or outdoors, make sure that each table is about a meter apart from the other. Moreover, it’s best to remove self-serving stations because it can be a space where customers get close to each other.
Improve Circulation at Your Restaurant
To minimize interaction between customers and staff, you must designate specific walkways that are reserved for specific movement in the restaurant. This restaurant management adjustment must comply with government regulations, ensuring that restaurant staff moves about in the restaurant in a way that won’t allow them to get too close to other people.
You can consider cordoning off specific parts of the restaurant for moving in only one direction. You can communicate these instructions through floor markings, signage, and written rules within the restaurant premises. If your restaurant has two doors, then consider designating one for entering and exiting.
Consider Adding Physical Barriers
Another one of the few COVID-19 safety measures for restaurants you can take is to add physical barriers between tables. Plexiglass barriers can ensure that there is minimal to no interaction between customers from one table and another. This safety measure is especially helpful when you cannot remove tables and chairs from the restaurant. You can, therefore, help your customers feel comfortable and safe even if there are other people around them.
Plexiglass attachments are relatively thin, so they won’t take up much space in your restaurant. Moreover, plexiglass is transparent and won’t make an imposing alteration to your restaurant aesthetic.
Include Sanitisation Stations in Various Parts of the Restaurant
Sanitising and washing your hands as often as possible is an essential COVID prevention method. Therefore, it’s incumbent upon you to incorporate that in your restaurant management via hands-free santisation and handwashing stations in different parts of the restaurant.
It’s best to set up one sanitisation station at the entrance of the restaurant. This way, you can ensure that people have clean hands when they enter your establishment. Furthermore, there will be fewer people heading to the restroom to wash their hands before eating, which, in turn, will reduce the bathrooms from getting overcrowded.
Make All Aspects of the Layout Contact-Free
Making all aspects of the layout contact-free is one of the most crucial COVID-19 safety measures for restaurants you must make. Install self-opening doors or keep them open the entire time your restaurant is open. This way, your customers won’t have to touch doorknobs to get into the establishment. Furthermore, you should do the same with restroom doors and trash receptacles to limit the spread of the virus.
In addition to doors and trash receptacles, you could incorporate contact-free ordering in your restaurant. You can make this feature possible for your business by including a WiFi-enabled ordering system that you can use through your phone. Another option includes a QR-code ordering system in which your customers simply have to scan a QR code to confirm their order. This way, your staff won’t have to hand out physical menus to your patrons. As a result, your customers can put their trust in your restaurant management, knowing that they’re not touching things that several other customers have before them.
Last Few Words
Educating yourself on how to layout your restaurant after COVID-19 can be the determining factor in whether your restaurant business dies, survives, or thrives during these troubling times. Thus, in addition to following government regulations, you also owe it to your customers and employees to prioritise their safety.
If you found this article informative and helpful to your restaurant business and wish to educate yourself further on restaurant management strategies, look at our website’s blog section. We share several restaurant trade secrets, and our many experienced restaurant consultants are available to provide you with professional advice and assistance with your food business.