An Ultimate Guide to Keep Physical Distancing in Your Restaurant, Bar or Cafe

The dark clouds of COVID-19 over Australia are finally shading off. Life is again claiming the normal. Businesses are on their way to flourish again and so is the hospitality industry. 

Soon the customers would shine your dine-in place with their presence. But, the restaurants, bars and cafe owners are in need to take crucial physical distancing measures to ensure the safety of everyone; customers as well as employees.

Below is the ultimate guide to social distancing at your place ensuring the safety of everyone under the roof. 

Restrict Your Staff Interactions: Use Signboards

To make your business work amid the COVID-19 crisis, the very first thing you need to do is to ensure the safety and health of your customers. We recommend for your employees to have minimal interaction with your customers. Or, the best way is to communicate with your guest through signs. Put a big signboard on your place’s window or a frame sign on the sidewalk for people to see that you are open and what your service hours are. Initially, it would be difficult to attract customers, but as soon as they trust their safety at your place, your place would be engaged, like before. 

Implementing Physical Distancing Inside Your Place: Use Floor Marking

When customers enter your place or standing outside, in the waiting area, you could offer them chairs, spaced 1.5 metres apart, to sit in while they wait. If your customers tend to stand while they wait or order, you can place floor markings or social distancing strips to remind them of maintaining their safe distance from one another. 

Shared Pathways and Including Outdoor Spaces

If your place has multiple entries and exit points, we recommend you to enable them for use. Having the least number of guests gathering at one place would minimise the chances of any spread of the disease and if you are fortunate enough to have an outdoor seating area adjoining your restaurant, arrange it for customer seating. This will not only help you welcome more customers but also make them feel more at ease, as the weather is warming up in Australia.

PS: Do employ the same safety and social distancing measures like at your main entrance and exit routes.

Physical Distancing among Food Workers

Where the food production nature makes it strenuous to maintain the safe distance, the place owners need to enable safety measures to put in place to protect their employees.

Following are the physical distancing rules to be implemented for a safer working environment:

● Discard food workers facing each other by staggering workstations on either side of processing lines
● Equip your employees with essential safety kits like disposable hand gloves, face mask, clean overalls, hair nets, and slip-resistant work shoes for staff. When the staffs are dressed in PPE (personal protective environment) kit, the probability of distancing between the co-workers’ increases
● Limit your staff in food preparation and serving area at any one time
● Enable split team approach that is organised staff into working groups or teams to facilitate reduced interaction between groups

Discouraging High Congregation Situations

Amid the area occupied by your place and adhering to the social distancing guidelines, calculate the maximum number of customers your venue can shelter at once (including your employees) to maintain a safe service and dining experience at your place. Do not rush to fill in your place and follow the WHO suggested safety guidelines, things are getting better for Australia and we all will overcome this real soon to shine like never before. 

Spacing Between Tables & Temporary Table Dividers

As now the restaurants are now allowed to welcome dine-in customers, the safety amid the COVID-19 reaches another level. The place owners are advised to keep a minimum 1.5 metres distance between the tables and enact temporary table dividers either by tapping off tables and seats or by placing transparent (plastic and fibre), wooden, or cardboard dividers to ensure physical distancing.

Fewer Buffets and No Self-service Facilities

Cut short your kitchen’s menu to your specialities to cope up with the shortage of groceries and ingredients in your kitchen and make up for the loss in the revenue due to fewer customers amid COVID-19. Discard self- service facilities for the time being to keep your food counter safe from any sort of contamination and gathering of two or more customers at one spot.

Introduce Your Business to Technology

Enable cash-free dining services or minimum physical currency exchange at your place. Engage your financial activities with technology to discard the physical contact between employees and customers.

PS: Do sanitise and clean your gadgets like laptop, computer or tablet in between every order.

Keep Continuing with Takeout and Home Delivery Services

Enable takeout and home delivery services, if you haven’t yet. And, if you do, invest in the banners (including your service hours, contact details and menu special (if applicable)) and other marketing platforms to extend your reach to support your business. 

A Vital Point to Remember…

Whatever unpleasant is happening around the world can only be controlled and defeated by implementing social distance and keeping everything contamination free. But under such stressful and concerning times, keep your staff happy, distracted towards good things, motivated and have faith, this too shall pass.

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