Nowadays, the fear of Coronavirus has gripped the entire world. By 9th March, more than 4200, people have died from the Novel Coronavirus (mostly in China) and 1,18,000 people worldwide were infected. (Channel News Asia).
Owing to the fear of such a deadly outbreak, people are thinking twice, even before visiting a restaurant.
In such scenarios, it is very important for you to ensure the safety of your customers.
Well, we have covered the what, why and how of COVID-19 and preventive measures that a restaurant or any F&B business should take.
Firstly, let us understand,
What is Coronavirus?
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses, some causing illness in people and others circulating among animals, including camels, cats and bats.
The 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a new virus that causes respiratory illness in people and can spread from person-to-person. This virus was first identified during an investigation into an outbreak in Wuhan, China.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has made a dedicated page that has comprehensive information on COVID-19. You can explore more of this outbreak from here.
How does it spread?
Human coronaviruses spread just like the flu or a cold (from person to person). Someone who is actively sick with COVID-19 can spread the illness to others.
- Through the air by coughing or sneezing
- Close personal contact, such as touching or shaking hands
- Touching an object or surface with the virus on it
- Occasionally, faecal contamination
What are its symptoms?
The basic symptoms of the COVID-19 can include:
- Fever
- Cough
- Shortness of breath
- Runny nose
The symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as long as 14 days after exposure. Reported illnesses have ranged from people with little to no symptoms to people being severely ill and dying.
How to keep your restaurant safe from Coronavirus?
Restaurants or any F&B business gather large groups of people to eat, drink and talk in close premises. So it is very important for you to introduce preventive measures. Following are mandatory actions that you should immediately bring into practice:
1. Keep your staff aware of the disease
Though most of your staff must be fairly familiar with the outbreak to some extent. We would still recommend you to arrange a meeting and make them aware of it to all corners.
Educate them about the preventive measures that they should take on your hotel premises. Also, brief them about the guidelines provided by the local health authorities.
If any of your guests is suffering from flu or any respiratory disease, then ask them to stay at home. (In such cases, if it is possible you can give them paid leave).
2. Use sanitizers and masks
Cleanliness is indeed a key to stay safe from the spread of this virus. Ensure that all the raw-products are washed properly under running water before being used.
Provide your staff members with surgical masks, alcohol-based hand sanitizer (containing at least 60% alcohol) and gloves to wear.
If you are offering non-vegetarian food, keep their ingredients separate from the vegetarian items to avoid cross-contamination.
#Protip: If possible stop selling non-vegetarian items for a particular time.
Deep-clean each and every corner of your kitchen with disinfectants.
COVID-19 disease can spread through droplets that are released from the infected person’s nose or mouth when someone coughs, sneezes or exhales. Therefore, ask your staff to use sanitizers, masks, and tissues frequently. Keep sanitizers in the kitchen, on dining tables and even on the cash-counter.
3. Keep a tab on your suppliers
Ensure megastores from where you are getting inventory for your restaurant are safe from COVID-19.
As the virus can be spread from animals too, take extra care while dealing with sea-food.
None of your food or beverage should be sourced from Hubei province or Wuhan city, where the Novel Coronavirus originated from.
4. Ensure cleanliness in the dining area
The crockery and utensils used at the buffet counters, including tongs, spoons and table runner, should be changed and sanitized frequently.
Ensure that tableware including salt & pepper shakers, toothpick holders, sugar container, tent cardholders, menus and bill folders are being cleaned and sanitized on a daily basis.
If possible don’t keep the table-napkins and utensils in an open environment for a long time.
If you have buffet or semi-buffet, then food should be served in smaller portions. It should be replaced after every 30 minutes to avoid contamination.
5. Avoid reusable tableware
Introduce disposables to avoid the germ-spread instead of crockery. When you will have disposables, there would be no hassles of cleaning or sanitizing it. Just throw it and it’s all done.
6. Avoid handshakes. Do ‘Namaste’
Well, the handshake is a great way of transferring different microbes like viruses and bacteria from one person to another. So for the time being, ask your staff members to avoid members shaking their hands with guests. Also internally, they should avoid frequent physical contact.
Even the health experts warn that shaking hands is a prime way to spread the coronavirus. You should adopt some different methods of greeting people, like elbow bumps or namaste.
7. Avoid hosting events
To avoid the germs spreading from disease, mass gatherings are totally restricted. So eliminate hosting any events. There’s no harm in hosting small birthday parties or business events having 20-25 people. But avoid hosting big events that are likely to collect 100s of people.
Moreover, you can stay informed with updated and credible information on the COVID-19 virus from here.
Word to the wise: Amid all this chaos, you must ensure that you’re offering a contactless experience to your customers. So, invest in contactless services and solutions to make your restaurant a safe place to dine in.
Conclusion
Above all, when you are taking all these measures, keep your customers posted about the same. Highlight these measures being taken at your restaurant in real-time on your website and social media pages. So, your customers can walk down at your eatery without any worries.
So, this was all about how you can keep your restaurant safe from coronavirus. It is one of the most deadly outbreaks in history. Therefore you have to adopt these measures on an urgent basis and stay safe from COVID-19.
Along with, as a restaurant owner/manager consider these preventive measures for yourself too and be safe.
Besides, if you have a hotel, then you can know the preventive measures to be safe from COVID-19 from here.