Steps to Stay Alive and Running in the New Normal for Restaurants

Coronavirus has still not left us, yet we are all back to business but, are restaurants safe to eat? What steps as a restaurateur should you take to keep the people flow into your restaurant amidst and post-COVID? Let us dig in.

A very famous quote by George Bernard Shaw says” There is no sincere love than the love for food” and who won’t agree with it? We all love food, and more than that; we love varieties in food. Whenever we feel low, a tasty treat from our favourite restaurant always spells it’s magic! But, none of us ever imagined that that magic would fade away due to entrance of the demon called Coronavirus.

Yes, the pandemic hit us so hard that we lost connectivity with our own self! Businesses doomed, the economy crashed, people lost jobs, and whatnot happened with and around us? Although we all tasted the wrath of coronavirus, the critical victims were the offline businesses. With the nationwide lockdown imposed for months, offline shop and business owners suffered a massive loss, and the most hit are the restaurants. The place of foods, laughs, tastes, and togetherness, restaurants – turned into haunted places in no time.

Now, that the lockdown has been withdrawn, and people are stepping out to crave their lost taste of “Salt & Pepper” from restaurants, let us find out how being a restaurant owner you can come out of the scary situation and thrive in the new normal.

For every restaurateur, the revenue has shown a sharp fall, but expenses are showing steady growth! In such an alarming situation, how can you increase your business? It’s time for a CHANGE! It’s time to upgrade and rise, not fall! Check out the below steps to spring back into action.

Six Easy Steps for Every Restaurant to Take Charge of the New Normal!

Safety first

Everyone visiting a restaurant or planning a takeaway will have a concern regarding the safety of the food prepared, quality, hygiene, and sanitisation at present times. Therefore, you need to invest in health & safety. Assure your customers that you are following all the WHO guidelines for delivering safe food to their plate. Monitor the health of your employees and delivery staff regularly and let customers know how extra cautious you are about the safety protocols.

Revamp your business model

You can no longer let people flood into your restaurants as social distancing is a must to prevent the spreading of coronavirus. Therefore, replan your business strategies. Seat customers with proper distance or switch to home deliveries and takeaways. You won’t believe there is an average 50-60% decline in dine-in since the pandemic as people are concerned about their safety first, while there is almost 70-80% increase in sales via mobile apps.

 Also Read: How On-Demand Delivery App Can Be Useful During COVID 19 Days?

Start marketing

Staying in touch with your customers is very much important at the current stage where the competition to survive is going on. Therefore, start advertising and marketing your skills. Reach out to people via social media platforms like Facebook posts, Instagram, Snapchat etc. and gather reviews how dining in the new normal feels to them. Post a video or photo showing how you are practising hygiene. Thus, once people start gaining your trust; you will be placed on a steady growth path again. Update that you are open and inform your working hours on all possible places like Google Maps, and other sites for customers to know.

Accept the new normal

COVID 19 has flipped the consumption pattern of consumers since they have started spending more time at their homes. Also, many of them are adopting a healthy lifestyle while staying at home as they have realised that health is the real wealth. Hence, keep yourself updated with the latest trends and choices people are making. Include healthy options in your menu and maybe some tips or information about the health benefits of each ingredient in your dish.

Get online

You might have realised by now the importance of having an online presence as they were least affected during the pandemic compared to offline ones, therefore; online food ordering app development should be the first and the foremost thing to do if you want your business to survive. Having an omnichannel presence will give you good exposure as well as sales.

Moreover, people are preferring ordering food online via mobile apps to satisfy their cravings as it is convenient and safe than going out in the crowd. Hence, investing in mobile app development should be your next step.

Try different options

With such an unstable situation outside, there is no surety of people coming to eat at restaurants. So, you must explore other options like home-delivery, drive-through, takeaway etc. You can either create food delivery app or register your restaurant with one but, since third-party food delivery apps charge a commission fee from restaurants which are between 15% to 30%, better create restaurant app of yours or get a food delivery app developed to cope up with this situation.

You can also pump up your sales by trying out various options like – encouraging customers to order food from your restaurant app or food delivery app by offering them attractive discounts, coupons, and combo offers, asking people to choose from interesting combos and offers to win more discounts etc. In short, invest in a technology that makes food ordering easy and deliveries worry-free, and leave customers with a satisfactory experience.

Conclusion

We are still burdened with COVID-19 infection, and no sugar-coating can help the current situation but, giving up is not an option. Restaurant businesses faced many severe challenges like sharp declines in revenue, tremendous labour losses as well as some permanent closures due to COVID-19, and it continues to remain a challenge for restaurants until when? Nobody knows. Therefore, restaurateurs must figure out alternatives to the traditional dining experience without wasting any time.

We can only hope for the world to become free from the clutches of virus and get back to the way it was but till then, make use of this crisis period to work upon your future and approach a mobile app builder to cook your online food delivery app development solution with premium and perfect tech ingredients that will help you grab the attention of the customers and win their heart.