When To Reopen Your Restaurant: That Is The Question!
COVID-19 FORCES BAR AND RESTAURANT OWNERS TO MAKE TOUGH DECISIONS AS GOVERNORS ACROSS THE COUNTRY LOOK TO LIFT LOCKDOWN RESTRICTIONS
There is no sugarcoating it: the food and beverage industry has been hit hard by COVID-19. Not only has the virus forced large-scale economic shutdowns, but it has also impacted consumers’ feelings towards drinking and dining out. Strict lockdowns in nearly every state during March and April caused millions of people (literally) to lose their hospitality-related jobs (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 5.5 million food and beverage jobs were lost in the month of April alone).. If you’re like me, you may have recently heard that some of your favorite local watering holes will not be returning to service post-pandemic. Last week this hit me hard when I learned that one of my favorite Brooklyn based bars would be calling it quits. But it doesn’t just hurt local patrons like me. Restaurant closings impact our local neighborhoods and economies as small and large business owners are faced with the difficult decision of how to move forward.
As governors across the country are looking to lift lockdown restrictions, the question begs: is now really the right time to re-open? This is a hugely complex topic and one in which I believe the solution must be determined on a case-by-case basis. That being said, I have done quite a bit of research and tried to compile all the data I could find here to help illuminate the situation for the many of you reading this who I know are staring that tough decision in the face.
We know this is a really tough decision. Honestly, we can’t tell you when is the right time to re-open. What we can share with you is what factors we believe you should consider when assessing whether or not to re-open your restaurant.
The Factors to Consider
The Staff
All businesses face labor expenses, but businesses in the food service industry are particularly reliant on human personnel. Further compounding the situation is that these hourly workers are often paid very low wages and rely heavily on tips for income. Without dine-in services, tip revenue basically disappears.
To make matters worse, the federal unemployment assistance -- an extra $600/week passed by Congress in the Spring, has expired, and with the Senate unable to come to an agreement on the next stimulus package, it remains uncertain how much help hospitality workers can expect to receive in the short term.
Customer Experience
Another factor that makes “re-opening” a bar or restaurant a difficult decision is how this pandemic will affect the overall guest experience. It will take time for “things to go back to normal”, and even then the new “normal” will be much different than before. It seems like social distancing is here to stay, which impacts everything in a restaurant from how many guests you can seat at one time to how many staff you can employ. And what does this do to the guest experience? Can a restaurant still create the perfect intimate dining experience for the couple celebrating their anniversary? Can a nightclub still provide the energy that only a dimly-lit room crowded with dancing bodies can?
It’s important to think about re-opening from the guests’ perspectives. What kind of experience did you create for your guests pre-COVID, and what kind of experience can you create for your guests post-COVID? Do you strive to create an intimate environment where guests can connect with each other over fine wine, cheeses, and signature cocktails? Or does your establishment provide the best NFL game-watching experience for fans in your city through the best beer and wing sauce collection known to humankind?
Not all of these drinking and dining experiences can look the same post-COVID, at least not for a while. Consider what your guests value most about coming to your establishment. Create a list of the top five reasons guests want to have an experience at your establishment, and go from there.
One of the most important factors is what kind of business model you have implemented for the products and services you offer at your establishment, which of course is directly affected by what kind of experiences you want to create. Do you rely on high-volume and low-margin (tons of people ordering Miller Lites), or do you cater to fewer guests at a time but offer premium, high-margin products (signature house cocktails)?
Common sense says that if you rely on high-volume, but capacity restrictions limit how many guests you can serve, then your revenue potential is severely limited. Opening pre-maturely in this kind of environment could be a recipe for disaster.
Another extremely important factor to consider (closely related to overall guest experience) is what your facilities will accommodate. Do you have the space that will allow for any sort of social distancing? This could be a struggle depending on what city or state you are located in. Restaurants in New York City, where space is a precious commodity, will probably have a difficult time creating environments that are conducive to social distancing, even at 50% capacity. Restaurants that don’t have outdoor seating also face difficulties. Further, reducing the number of available seats will drastically impact the amount of revenue that can be obtained at a given time.
Social Responsibility
And what role should establishments be playing in social responsibility? How much does it fall on the bars and restaurants to help limit the spread of COVID-19? Is there a way to ease back into operations in a safe manner that protects the general public?
This is the big-picture factor. In the sunbelt, where COVID-19 is surging, bars are largely to blame for the spread. This is bad for our industry. The last thing we want to do is be responsible for creating and encouraging environments where the virus is easily transmitted. This puts restaurant owners in a tough position: sacrificing their business and staff for the common good of stopping the spread of COVID-19.
And in the absence of mandatory lockdowns, the burden of responsibility for these decisions is indeed going to fall on bar and restaurant owners. That being said, if you absolutely MUST re-open your establishment, the next few sections provide some helpful thoughts and guidelines to consider:
Safety
Once you have established what kind of experience you created for your guests pre-COVID, you can now determine if that kind of experience is going to be possible now -- taking into consideration the most important factor: safety.
Not only safety for your staff, but safety for your guests. Priority number one needs to be reducing the chances of virus transmission.
Along that line, the CDC has published a guide for restaurants looking to re-open, but the document is extremely short and many find it to be not very helpful.
Fortunately, the National Restaurant Association has published their own best-practices for re-opening, which you can find here.
And if you’re looking for the most comprehensive re-opening resource, the James Beard Foundation has published its own guidelines -- a very thorough 46 page document that details pretty much everything you’d want to know about safely re-opening. They have made it free and available to restaurant owners and managers here.
The next question to ask yourself is, “Can we adhere (at a minimum) to the best practices for re-opening laid out by the National Restaurant Association?”
These guidelines include recommendations on Food Safety, Cleaning and Sanitizing, Monitoring Employee Health and Hygiene, and Social Distancing.
And if you want to take it a step further, can you adhere to all the recommendations from the James Beard Foundation on reopening?
The food safety, cleaning/sanitizing, employee health/hygiene are all pretty straightforward. Install hand sanitizing stations. Prop restaurant doors open. Create disposable menus. Train staff on new cleaning procedures.
The category of recommendations that is worth exploring a little further is social distancing -- which is why we spent so much time earlier going over what kind of experience you want to create for your guests.
There’s no way around it: social distancing will impact the guests’ experience in some way. So, if you are a restaurant owner who wants to provide the safest environment for your staff and guests, and you also want to provide a similar dining or drinking experience to what existed pre-COVID, then you will most likely have to think through what is possible and what simply isn’t.
Another issue that is becoming more and more prevalent is guests’ attitudes towards social distancing and wearing masks. We’ve all seen the viral videos flying around social media showcasing angry customers throwing tantrums, refusing to wear masks. While this makes for a few minutes of free entertainment, the unfortunate reality is that the burden of enforcing mask and social distancing requirements falls on the staff of the establishments. This is another thing to consider -- your staff will most likely have to enforce (sometimes uncomfortably) the rules that you put in place.
Pros and Cons of Re-Opening
To summarize, there are obviously a lot of pros and and a lot of cons to re-opening a restaurant in this climate, and each establishment is different and must consider their respective unique situations.
Short-term revenue can’t be overlooked. We are in the middle of a global pandemic, and being able to survive (literally) is going to be at the forefront of this decision-making process.
However, when looking at the long term, it’s going to be in the industry’s best interest to do what we can to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Unfortunately, bars have gotten a lot of bad press in the last few weeks as COVID cases are surging. Many health experts attribute this to a lack of social distancing, and bars and nightclubs in particular are bearing a lot of this responsibility for creating environments that make it hard to social distance. This is not the legacy we want our industry to be known for.
Further, dining out really is about the experience. If you can’t provide the experience that your guests are looking for, will that help you in the long run?
Resources for Reopening Your Restaurant:
What’s Next?
There is hope! As of early June, Chili’s (and its higher-end sister Maggiano’s) have opened 82% of their restaurant dining rooms. CNBC reported that “Customers appear to be returning to Chili’s. During the week ended April 29, same-store sales had plunged 42.1% from a year earlier. By the week ended June 3, same-store sales were down just 18.9%.” But these restaurants look much different. Dining rooms are allowed to re-open at 50% capacity and hand sanitizing stations have been set up all throughout the restaurant. There are less seats at the bar. No more waiting in the lobby for a table. Employees wear masks and gloves.
Another alternative to re-opening your bar complete is pivoting your menu and service style for to-go service only.
To-Go Cocktail Programs
Many states have relaxed liquor laws to allow for flexibility in the way that restaurants are allowed to serve alcohol. Nashville is allowing bars and restaurants to serve to-go drinks. Here are a couple examples:
The Fox Cocktail Club, Nashville, TN (created a whole to-go menu of cocktails)
Rosepepper Cantina, Nashville, TN (people line up around the block for their to-go margaritas)
Of course, there is no straightforward “right” or “wrong” answer or checklist we can give you in this scenario. Ultimately, you have to make the decision that is best for your business and for your team according to your priorities and values. That being said, there are options and ways of going about re-opening, and there are a ton of great examples of bar and restaurants who have pivoted to make it work amid the pandemic in the market that you can look to today for inspiration and guidance.