With much controversy and uncertainty as well as a host of new laws and mandates, what can restaurants expect in 2021? The new year brings an array of new federal, state, and local laws and regulations that can affect your business.  Staying informed has never been as critical as it is now. An article in USA Today outlined many of the latest mandates and restrictions by state. The Restaurant Law Center of the National Restaurant Association regularly updates its state-specific comprehensive Official State Guidelines for Foodservice Establishments.

 

COVID regulations – Most states take a similar approach to managing employee health monitoring, imposing stricter sanitation protocols, and minimizing physical contact between employees and customers. However, states and even counties vary widely, based on the severity of the pandemic in their area. General areas of regulation include:

 

• PPE: Most states require face coverings to be worn inside public spaces by all staff and guests (except when eating/drinking). Employers should provide and ensure workers use all required protective equipment, including face coverings and gloves where necessary.
• Employee Health Checks: Most states have regulations that employers must perform daily health monitoring of employees and send home any employee who displays symptoms. All employees are required to report any fevers of illness to a supervisor.

  

• Notice Requirements of COVID-19 exposure in the workplace: Several states have enhanced reporting requirements to local health authorities in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak and expand OSHA’s authority to shut down work sites deemed to be an “imminent hazard.”
• Sanitation Recommendations or Requirements:
  • Hand washing is required
  • High contact areas must be cleaned every two hours
  • Provide all refills in a clean/unused container
  • Utilize single-use paper or QR-code driven menus
  • Discontinue pre-setting tables with napkins, cutlery, glassware, plate ware, etc. Use single-use items such as packets of ketchup or salt as needed
  • Pre-roll utensils in napkins before use or provide pre-packed utensils
  • Have hand-sanitizer, preferably “touchless” and sanitizing products available for employees and guests
  • Train staff and prepare procedures for elevated cleaning and sanitizing
  • Provide prominently displayed signage outlining proper face-covering usage and current physical distancing practices in use at all entrances and throughout the location
• Distancing and Occupancy:
  • While some states have shut down all indoor and outdoor dining, the guidelines vary by state. The general rule is when onsite dining is allowable, and tables are distanced 6 feet apart with no more than 8 guests per table. Must adhere to local capacity limits.
  • Prioritize curbside pickup to minimize the cross-flow of customers
  • Designate with signage, tape, or other visual cues the social distancing spacing for employees and customers in all areas of the restaurant
  • Conduct pre-shift meetings and training virtually or in areas that allow for appropriate physical distancing
  • Ask customers to wait in their cars while waiting to be seated, provide alerts via mobile devices
• Payment Systems:
  • Use of physical barriers such as plexiglass partitions at registers
  • Use contactless payment options

 

Additional Labor Law changes for 2021 (varies by state):

Minimum Wage – While the federal minimum wage has not increased for over a decade from $7.25, the Congressional Budget Office has suggested raising the national figure to $15/hour by 2025. Many states, including California, implemented increases on January 1, 2021, to $13/hour for employers with 25 or fewer employees and $14 for employers with more than 25 employees. (Note: various cities and local governments may have enacted minimum wage ordinances exceeding the state minimum wage level.)

Tipping – The Department of Labor allowed a final rule that allowed restaurants to require servers to pool tips with staff that doesn’t typically earn them, such as cooks and dishwashers. For restaurants, the benefit is straightforward –the ability to narrow the pay gap between the front and back of house.

 

 

Discrimination – In California, employees have a year (instead of six months) to file a discrimination or retaliation complaint with the Division of Labor Standard Enforcement (DSLE).

Sexual Harassment Training Mandate – For many states, the law took effect on January 1, 2020, but several others (including CA) extended the required implementation date to January 1, 2021. This mandate requires all employers with more than five employees to have a written sexual harassment policy in English and Spanish. Employees must complete a 1-hour training and supervisors a 2-hour training and pass a final assessment to receive the certification.

Leave of Absence- Laws in certain states have been expanded to include companies with five or more employees instead of the previous minimum of 50 or more employees.

Worker Classification – There are three key elements used to determine whether a worker should be classified as an employee or independent contractor.

1. Is the worker free from the hiring entity’s control and direction in connection with the performance of the work?
2. Does the worker perform work outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business?
3. Is the worker customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed?

If the answer to all three is yes, the person can be classified as an independent contractor.

 

Supplemental Paid Sick Leave – While it was set to expire on December 31, 2020, some states have added legal requirements for employers in the foodservice industry to continue to provide supplemental paid sick leave as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. To be eligible for this additional paid sick leave, the employee must be unable to work due to one of the following reasons:

• The employee is subject to a Federal, State, or local quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19
• A health care provider advises the employee to self-quarantine or self-isolate due to concerns related to COVID-19
• The employee is prohibited from working by the employer due to health concerns related to the potential transmission of COVID-19

 

In an increasingly difficult climate, restaurants are doing everything they can to keep their staff and guests safe and their doors open while complying with constantly-changing guidelines which can be a challenge to even the most seasoned restaurant professional! Reach out to us to see how our 30+ year history in the industry can help your restaurant not only survive but thrive in 2021.

Do you remember your first day in the restaurant business?

 

If you’ve never worked in the business before, it seems so simple: Take someone’s order, cook it, put it on the table, and collect the money.

 

Then you get there, walk into the kitchen or the backroom, and the place is chaos. It’s terrifying. There are hot stoves, ovens, knives, yelling people, cranky customers, servers who just got stiffed on a tip, and more. So what could you count on that first day? If you were lucky, great training. Hopefully, the managers spent a couple of days teaching what you needed to know to get started on your role.

 

After someone leaves the restaurant business, you often find out that they quit because they weren’t trained well. Servers weren’t making good tips, kitchen staff is constantly getting yelled at, bartenders slowing everything down, or host staff stressed out.

 

 

The fastest way to lose your staff is to not train them or train them poorly. This is doubly true for the new generations of employees. They’re smart enough to know that they don’t know enough. Many will ask for more training if they need it. If they find that they’re not making money, they’ll simply quit.

 

While the recent pandemic has made things very difficult for restaurants and put millions out of work, the employment situation before and the likely situation afterward aren’t great for a business that still pays some staff $2.83 an hour. The best thing you can do as a restaurant manager and/or owner is train your staff well.

 

Be sure to not simply train them on the things you need them to know, like menu knowledge or how to make certain drinks. Teach the front of house staff how to upsell and ideas on how to make great tips. Train the kitchen staff on different stations so they don’t get bored and will feel more valuable. Help the host staff start training to serve. Servers often want to become bartenders, so make a clear path for them to learn those skills.

 

In other words, add value to your staffs’ lives.

 

Bonus: You’ll end up with a stronger team. Do you have a comprehensive training and advancement plan for your staff?

During these unprecedented times, health has been a number one priority for all. The world itself has changed and now the terms like “social distancing,” “masks,” “wash your hands” and “zoom” are part of our daily vernacular.  It’s not surprising, then, that the restaurant industry has been in a flurry trying to keep up with stringent guidelines that are constantly evolving. Keeping a close ear to local and governmental mandates and pivoting to meet customer demands has been what 2020 was all about and so too will it in 2021 for those operating restaurants.

 

While more and more people are thankfully getting vaccinated, the pandemic is still certainly not over yet. This time, it’s important to learn from the past and use those skills we’ve acquired to establish a better year. As we mentioned, new habits have been formed across the world as we all cope with COVID. It is quite amazing how much we can do from our own computers as we transition from the physical board meetings in business offices, to virtual zoom meetings in our living rooms. We have grown accustomed to this kind of work and that doesn’t exclude those in the hospitality industry either. With proper staff training being evermore crucial, elearning is an effective and convenient way to educate your restaurant employees on best practices and company procedures.

 

According to the 2019 TalentLMS Survey regarding employee training in the food and beverage industry, 70% of employees receive zero customer service training–yikes! However, when asked about training, 61.5% said that training enhanced their overall professional performance. This demonstrates that employees need training and when they do get it, they feel they are benefitting. Training in every related aspect of a job is important, so nothing–including customer service–should be left out!

 

 

Synergy has cultivated decades worth of restaurant industry knowledge to provide restaurant operators an easy-to-use restaurant training platform. The beauty of it is it can be conducted anywhere you or your staff are as it is cloud-based! Synergy Sync is a low cost subscription with a per location monthly fee, that ensures you can train any new staff or refresh staff training at any time and create consistent systems across all sites. The per employee cost for Synergy Sync training is as low as .20 per day! This online course covers best practices in every area where you need your team to succeed!

If you’d like to take your team to the next level and be a more effective operation, please reach out to us for a free virtual tour of Synergy Sync.

Restaurant life is busy. Restaurant owners and managers will tell you “busy” is quite the understatement! According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “managers at fine-dining and fast-food restaurants often work long shifts, and some work more than 40 hours per week.” It should be no surprise that a restaurant manager’s duties cover many areas. They are responsible for daily planning, back-and-front-of-house operations, supply chain oversight, budgeting, customer service, and setting sales targets, problem-solving, health and safety compliance, marketing, hiring, and training staff. That’s quite a laundry list!

 

With the hospitality industry turnover rate of 75% in 2019, it’s crucial to get a grip on your employees’ state. Are they leaving due to a lack of leadership? Do they feel under-compensated? Is there adequate training to help them feel confident and effective in their roles? Is there a disconnect between your company’s goals and what’s being delivered on a day-to-day basis? We understand that managing your restaurant is a large feat (especially with multiple locations). There isn’t enough time in the day to implement a better restaurant management system that could help you with the critical aspect of staff training.

 

Synergy Restaurant Consultants has combined their 30 plus years of foodservice operations experience and is now offering a remote, online Operations Management Training System called Synergy Sync. Communicate, manage, and train your team efficiently with our on-demand eLearning training platform. Your team can access the training online at their own pace, wherever they want.

 

This training operations platform includes education, training, and tools, including:

• Standardized procedures, forms, and checklists
• Quizzes
• Easily managed results
• Process management: FOH, BOH, recipes, costing, pre-shift, line checks, production, storage, vendor purchasing, hiring
• Compliance Monitoring
• Synergy Sync Manager Certification

 

Our integrated training and operations management platform is a low-cost subscription with a per location monthly fee. This format ensures you can train any new staff or refresh staff training at any time and create consistent operational systems across all sites. With two levels of engagement, we are confident you will see a significant ROI in short order! Get your team in sync today with Synergy Sync!

 

With the restaurant turnover rate at an estimated 75%, what can restaurant owners and managers do to combat this staggering statistic? One critical solution is to prioritize onboarding and training.

 

According to Investopedia, hiring an hourly employee can cost close to $3500 when factoring in the entire hiring process. So throwing a new employee into a job with the expectation that they will learn as they go isn’t going to cut it.  There are higher expectations for training and, if implemented consistently, a greater return on your hiring investment.

 

With Millennials making up a large percentage of those working in the restaurant industry, it’s essential to identify what they want out of their jobs. 55% seek workplaces that value staff development through training and mentoring. An article from Toast outlined the importance of providing your restaurant staff with consistent, skills-based training to help them grow as people and professionals.

 

With a heavy influence on technology, Millennials have grown up with and have seen how it can support their development and growth. Traditional book or paper-based training alone may seem outdated since many Millennials are used to online or app-based learning. However, according to Toasts’ 2019 Restaurant Success Report, only 19% of restaurant employers offer online training to new hires. YouTube and Google are where Millennials often look for information, so it’s important to incorporate video into your restaurant training to keep it more interesting. We all know how tied to our phones we are, so instead of forbidding phone usage completely, consider app-based training for learning on the go that can be done on a phone or tablet. If you’re not using online or app-based training, you are missing an opportunity for more quality engagement and a deeper understanding of your restaurant.

 

Many obstacles prevent restaurant operators from implementing robust training programs, including time, money, and resources, plus the added challenges of keeping your training program accessible and engaging for your team. However, a well-trained workforce saves your restaurant time and money, and it also increases profitability in several ways, including:

 

• Increased Retention: with a focus on quality training, employees often feel valued and likely will be more loyal to your restaurant.
• Enhanced Customer Service: with comprehensive training, your employees are better equipped to upsell effectively and deliver consistent customer service which is critical to retaining your customers.
• Team-Building: training creates accountability, ownership and a sense of responsibility among your staff. This can lead to greater respect among employees. Cross-training also helps to build a dedicated team of well-rounded staff who will be ready to take up any tasks when needed.
• Overall Operations Improvements: when everyone is well trained and understands your processes thoroughly, the entire operation is streamlined. Restaurant training ensures that everyone is on the same page and eliminates confusion and mistakes.

 

 

If you are looking to maintain your company standards with an affordable front and back of the house learning management system, tap into Synergy Sync’s on-demand eLearning training solution to make your employees excited about clocking in…and sticking around! Synergy Sync is your one-stop learning management, checklist accountability, and process management training system built by restaurant leaders for restaurant leaders. It will take your operations training to the next level! Contact us today for a virtual tour!

After more than 30 years in the restaurant consulting business, we’ve helped thousands of clients launch new concepts, revive old ones, and set the bar for menu innovation. Though every client and project are different, certain pieces of advice never grow old. Below are a few of our partners’ timeless recommendations, redefined for today’s foodservice operators.

 

You make money with your hands, not your feet

The next time you’re in your restaurant kitchen, stop and watch the team go about their work. Do they rush from the walk-in to their station to grab ingredients? Do they have to walk down the cook’s line to drop off their finished plates at the expo station? Are they running around the kitchen to access the equipment they need to make specific menu items? If you add up the amount of time that your kitchen team is moving around the kitchen and multiply that total by the average amount you pay for labor each minute, you’ll be shocked at how much you’re paying for people to walk around the kitchen.

Efficient kitchen, cook’s line, and station design reduces roving to a minimum and keeps team members at their stations so they can prep, cook, and assemble plates as quickly as possible. Once cooks set up their station, they should have all of the ingredients, tools, and equipment they need at their fingertips, or at most in a few steps with minimal cross-over. While labor efficiency is an evergreen goal, it’s more important now with fewer bodies in the kitchen.

 

Lunch is about speed, value, and convenience

With so many restaurants today looking to expand sales, it’s critical to have a lunch strategy build on these three tenets. In today’s environment, we highly recommend that operators adopt this strategy to all day parts.

 

Many diners are eager to get out and enjoy a sit-down meal at their favorite restaurant, while a significant portion of the dining population still feels apprehensive. As infection rates rise in a majority of states, dining room closures could crop up again in the coming weeks. All of this uncertainty points to a continued commitment to speed, value, and convenience across the board. These are not just sales-boosting strategies — in the eyes of your customer, they have risen to critical needs. Foodservice establishments that can flex with changing constraints and deliver on guests’ evolving needs are poised for greater success in this challenging business environment.

 

Watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves

Monitoring your business expenses has never been more crucial than now. Profit margins in foodservice are notoriously slim, and with lower sales and higher commodity prices taking their toll, operators must focus on watching every penny that goes out the door.

 

Shoring up expenses on cleaning supplies, paper goods, and utilities certainly help, but your most significant savings opportunities lie in managing prime costs — namely, labor, food, and beverage expenses. Take a look at your P&L and calculate what percentage of gross sales is being offset by the costs. Ideally, prime costs should fall around 65% of sales. If they’re much higher, you have an opportunity to reorient your costs against the reality of today’s volume as a starting point.

 

Where restaurants often miss the mark is calculating their food and beverage costs. Most operators subtract purchases from sales and call it a day. While this method is quick and easy, it only reveals substantial shifts in the expense numbers, not everyday trends that over time add up to significant added food cost, like over-portioning, excessive waste, and petty theft. By determining accurate per-recipe and per-plate costs, managers and owners can gain greater visibility into their highest variable costs and identify opportunities to fine-tune their operations for greater savings.

 

However…

 

You can’t save your way to prosperity

Cutting costs is essential operating procedure these days, but penny-pinching alone won’t get you to continued profitability. There comes a point when further cost reductions begin to negatively impact food and service quality, a consequence that no one can afford.

 

Generating more sales is always the answer, and one of the most impactful ways of doing so is through upselling. Increase your check average by bundling value-added items together and promoting family-focused meal solutions. Offer special deals and discounts to your loyalty program members to increase purchase frequency. Most importantly, educate your front-of-house staff on encouraging guests to try new items or add on to their order in a helpful and not a sales-y manner.

 

If you’re not talking, you’re not training

A quality training program for every restaurant position is an absolute requirement for success, but many establishments rely on shadowing or simple checklists. Over and over again, the best training involves thoughtful and detailed communication between trainer and trainee. Some of the most impactful lessons happen on the spot when managers can observe and correct in the moment. This “walking around” training is much more likely to affect real change.

Good training corrects mistakes, but great training involves catching team members doing something right. By pointing out a team member’s success in front of their co-workers, you elevate their attitude along with those of the staff around them.

 

The devil is in the details

Getting the details right not only increases guest satisfaction, it also elevates your brand in the eyes of your customers who are watching even more closely. These days, keeping the promises you make to your guests is critical. If you’ve committed to sanitizing tables after every use, it must be done without fail. If you’ve designated specific trays for silverware and others for bussing dirty dishes, you cannot mix them up. If you’ve developed a specific policy for solving guest issues, execute it the same way every time.

 

With all of the added stress, anxiety, and health concerns swirling around, every guest touchpoint must be executed flawlessly. No detail is too small for a guest to notice.

 

What do you want to be known for?

This is (sometimes literally) the $600,000 question. Though the pandemic has caused many restaurants to shut their doors for good, there’s still plenty of competition for stomach share. It’s just not enough to sell good food and offer good service — being exceptional at something is essential. Are you known for that over-the-top signature item that everyone Instagrams? Do you offer a take-out meal for two that delivers a creative dining experience? Have you elevated a common item to new and craveable heights?

 

Distinctive and memorable restaurant brands who continue to innovate while responding to guests’ needs, wants, and expectations will win the day, regardless of market conditions or the amount of local competition.

After months of adhering to only takeout and delivery mandates, restaurants in nearly all 50 states are now allowed to offer dine-in service as long as they comply with the regulations outlined by their local government. Georgia was the first state to reopen its dining rooms in late April, while Massachusetts just reintroduced indoor dining on June 22.

Of course, it’s not business, as usual, any longer. The dine-in options come with restrictions, so owners must consult with their local health agencies for guidelines. Generally, however, you will come across rules like these:

• Required cloth-facial coverings for staff and encourage patrons to wear these as well
• Limit the number of people per party and per table
• Reduce overall guest occupancy in the establishment
• Establish 6-feet distance between tables and workstations
• Sanitize dining tables and seats after each sitting
• Provide single-use menus, condiments, and disposable or pre-rolled silverware
• Prioritize outdoor seating
• Implement policies and procedures training for employee and guest safety
• Close-off self-service stations (salad bars, salsa bars, fountain drink area, etc.)
• Establish special hours for high-risk patrons
• Encourage reservations if patrons would like to dine-in
• Install barriers like sneeze guards and partitions in areas where social distancing is hard to maintain
• Provide personal protective equipment for your employees
• Remove board games, books, pool tables, or other shared entertainment items
• Provide contactless payment options for guests
• Implement online ordering of meals ahead of time for those looking to dine-in

 

The importance of following your local government’s dine-in guidelines cannot be understated. You won’t be hard-pressed to find various restaurants across the country suddenly close their doors (after only reopening dine-in service for a few weeks) due to employees or individuals testing positive for COVID-19. In fact, in Miami, police now can shut down a business on the spot for violating capacity restrictions. Save yourself time and headaches and follow safety guidelines!

Pro tip: If your establishment serves alcohol, you might find this resource handy from the National Restaurant Association on state alcohol delivery laws, including off-premise alcohol sales updated on June 23, 2020.

If you need a review of your COVID training and dine-in environment, please reach out to Synergy. We also offer remote consulting options.

Handling difficult customers is an ever-present challenge in restaurants. But, like everything else in our post-COVID world, this too has become more complex. In recent weeks, restaurants have scrambled to reopen by reconfiguring their dining rooms for social distancing and equipping team members with masks, digital thermometers, and disposable menus. Dine-in restaurants are attempting to serve customers with a pent-up need to get out of the house and restart some semblance of normal. Some of these patrons comply with social distancing and mask use, but others are defiantly ignoring these guidelines. This leaves restaurants — specifically, front-of-house employees — tasked with managing customer compliance on top of trying to provide great customer service.

To balance these varied levels of customer cooperation with protecting the health and safety of everyone in the restaurant, team member training is critical. As reopening guidelines and guest attitudes change and evolve, restaurants must continuously monitor what’s happening both inside and outside their four walls so they can train team members to handle guest challenges and update training based on the shifting service environment.

Below is a step-by-step plan for quickly creating and adapting your team member training program in response to COVID-19 guidelines and customer demands:

1. Train team members on scenarios as well as tools. Most team member training programs focus on tools and procedures, like how to use a digital thermometer to take a customer’s temperature, or how to sanitize guest tables. These protocols are obviously important, but what about when a guest refuses to wear a mask? Create a list of possible guest challenges and conduct role-playing sessions so team members are equipped to handle touchy situations, especially those that put other guests and team members at risk, and when to involve a manager. It’s also crucial to remind team members why following their training is essential — not just to them but to guests and the larger community.

2. Review federal, state, and local guidelines every week. Assign one of your managers or your Safety Officer with staying on top of restaurant operating guidelines. By having one person in charge of monitoring these mandates, it places the responsibility on one person and eliminates the need for all managers to keep up with this information.

3. Conduct regular safety and compliance walk-throughs. During each shift, the manager on duty must walk the dining room to make sure team members and guests are complying with all service and safety guidelines. This helps take some of the enforcement pressure off of team members and demonstrates your restaurant’s commitment to the health and safety of all.

 

4. Use pre-shift meetings as a key communications tool. Take a few minutes before each shift to gather all team members and discuss how the restaurant is adhering to COVID guidelines. Make it a point to cover a different topic each time, like hand washing, sanitizing, and mask use, to keep team members engaged. If someone on the team has done an exceptional job, recognize and praise them in front of their colleagues. Pre-shift meetings are a great opportunity to answer questions and alert team members to any new training requirements.

5. Conduct weekly management meetings. Gather all managers once a week to review any new guidelines or requirements identified by your designated manager or Safety Officer that might require new training. In addition, each manager presents what they’ve observed during their shifts — success stories, new challenges, and recommended changes to existing procedures.

6. Provide team members access to the latest information, tools, and training. Team members are more likely to carry out what they’ve been trained to do when you make compliance as easy as possible. Make Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), FAQs, and training information readily available through employee bulletin boards or go digital with restaurant operations software.

7. Deliver ongoing team member support. As part of their shift walks, managers should identify team members who may need additional compliance and guideline training. The goal is not to punish but to provide additional support to help those team members be successful. Support can take the form of on-the-spot coaching, an offline conversation, or retraining on specific procedures or scenarios. Providing this level of oversight and development makes it clear to team members that compliance is an ongoing priority.

8. Lather, rinse, repeat. This process of presenting a training plan, administering the training, and supporting the training with oversight and coaching, is critical to making your COVID compliance efforts successful. In fact, this process can be used for any restaurant training program, including the introduction of new menu items, upselling, and food safety.

 

As restaurants continue to feel their way through a complex and confusing path to normalcy, training all team members should be a constant goal. Team member training is not a “set it and forget it” effort. With the rapid pace of change in today’s hospitality environment, safeguarding the health and safety of your team members and guests is your most important endeavor.

As states and the federal government limit restaurants to drive-thru, take-out, and delivery business, foodservice establishments are forced to pivot their business model overnight. Third-party delivery services like DoorDash and GrubHub are responding with free delivery and lower percentage fees but as more people hunker down at home, these services may not keep pace with demand. 

By switching to curbside pickup and self-run delivery, restaurants can maintain a level of cash flow, provide work for key staff members, and serve their local communities during these incredibly challenging times. And while it’s tough right now to think about it, this crisis will end and guests will flock to restaurants once again. Weathering this public health crisis presents operators the opportunity to hone their systems for survival today and prosperity tomorrow.

Knowing Your Guest: Evolving Perceptions and Concerns

We’ve all seen the news reports of empty grocery store shelves, and Costco lines circling the block. As concern for personal health and safety skyrockets, public perception surrounding the safety of restaurant food grows. According to a Datassential survey conducted during March 13 and 14, consumer’s fears are focused on the cleanliness of employees and food safety. Based on previous viral outbreaks like Norovirus and E-Coli, today’s restaurant guests are acutely aware of hygiene issues in restaurants and workers coming in sick. 

These concerns, coupled with the unknowns surrounding coronavirus, compound each other in the minds of consumers nervous about home confinement and getting access to essentials. In putting together a business strategy focused on take-out and delivery, it’s critical for restaurants to provide verbal, written, and demonstrated policies that address customer fears. 

Below we’ve included detailed and actionable steps on how to pivot to today’s restaurant business reality while building trust with customers, staff, and the community. This plan is based on three objectives; namely, cutting expenses, preserving sales, and improving operations.

Step 1: Cut Your Menu

A smaller and more focused takeout and delivery menu helps reduce expenses and complexity in this critical time. You also want to reduce menu complexity for your customers who are undoubtedly overwhelmed during these uncertain times. When paring down your menu, look at your product mix and identify top sellers along with items with good profit margins and those that are easy to make. Look for menu items that cross-utilize a number of ingredients to keep inventory low. 

Most important, select menu items that will look and taste great out of a to-go box. For some customers, their take-out order is an introduction to your food. It’s critical to make a great first impression so stick with items like undressed salads, cold sandwiches, and sauced foods for your to-go menu. Items that don’t hold up well include hot fried foods, nachos and quesadillas, and delicate fish.

Beyond your standard menu items, consider adding family meals and meal kits to your to-go menu for a value-driven price for families on limited budgets. These can include pre-cooked mains and sides with storage and reheating instructions, or build-your-own meal kits for items like tacos or rice bowls. Offering multiple days worth of meals for a discounted price are attractive to customers who need to watch their spending. Designing to-go items tailored to the unique needs of your customers demonstrates your commitment to them, and reinforces your positive brand image in their eyes.

Step 2: Pay Attention to Packaging

Your to-go packaging is just as important as the food inside, so make sure that team members who package to-go meals understand what packaging to use for each item. To address customer concerns about food handling, use a sticker to alleviate any worries about tampering. Create a checklist for your to-go orders to ensure that team members are checking order accuracy, correct packaging, and utensils. On this checklist, it’s helpful to include a list of specific cleaning and sanitizing procedures you’re following in the kitchen to reassure customers about your commitment to safe practices.

Step 3: Enforce Food Safety and Employee Health Policies

Considering the public’s concern about restaurant kitchen cleanliness and food handling procedures, it’s more important than ever to retrain and reinforce proper hygiene and sanitation practices. Below are a few ideas to help you exceed these standards:

• Managers should familiarize themselves with the CDC’s guidelines on hygiene, as well as answers to questions about food and the coronavirus
• Create a team member check-in procedure to make sure they are not showing any signs of illness, their uniforms are clean, and they are practicing appropriate personal hygiene practices.
• Retrain all team members on correct handwashing and glove usage. Set a 15-minute kitchen timer all day to remind every team member to change gloves and wash their hands.
• Retain kitchen team members on sanitizer bucket and solution usage. Quat sanitizer solution is effective for only two hours or if it becomes dirty. Set a 60-minute kitchen timer to remind team members to fill a clean sanitizer bucket with fresh sanitizer solution.
• Set a regular schedule for a manger to check dishwasher functioning and water temperature, as well as usage and inventory levels of required cleaning and sanitizing chemicals. Place orders when 25% of chemical pars have been reached.
• Ensure that all to-go packaging, napkins, and utensils are stored underneath a shelf or tabletop, wrapped in a bag, or are turned upside down to prevent physical contamination. Keep packaging inventory in cases until needed.
• Instruct managers to monitor the kitchen for food safety compliance and spot-train as needed.

Step 4: Develop Low- or No-Contact Guest Service Steps

When setting up procedures for taking, filling, and completing to-go and delivery orders, design each step to minimize contact between team members and guests for everyone’s health and safety. As you develop your service procedures, include ways to demonstrate your commitment to recommended hygiene steps. Below is a set of recommended steps of service for to-go and delivery orders:

• If you’re using third-party delivery services, encourage guests to place their orders on your website by clicking links to delivery companies. Many are waiving restaurant fees if guests place orders from the restaurant website.
• If your POS is enabled with touch-free payments, encourage guests to set up Android or Apple Pay through your website and social media feeds.
• For guests using a third-party delivery service, let them know  on your website that they can request a no-contact delivery by texting their driver.
• Designate a manager or shift supervisor to take phone orders and enter them accurately in your POS system. Make sure to capture a guest name and phone number for each order and a pick-up time for advance orders. For curbside pickup orders, provide guests with a phone number to call when they arrive for their order.
• For advance orders, package orders no more than 20 minutes in advance to maintain food temperature and quality.
• Package all orders using the above-mentioned order checklist and a clean set of gloved hands. Once the order is filled and checked, staple the checklist to the outside of the order bag.
• When guests arrive and call for their order, have a greeter wearing gloved hands open the door and direct them to the cashier. If the guest is paying with a credit card, the cashier uses hand sanitizer and puts on a new pair of gloves before ringing up the purchase. Once the cashier hands the credit card back to the guest, the cashier removes and discards their gloves in front of the guest.
• Place signs at the cashier and on the front door listing specific cleaning and hygiene practices you are following to instill confidence in guests.
• Consider using staff members as delivery people, as long as they have required personal auto insurance. Train your staff to deliver orders while wearing new gloves for each order and by calling the guest to let them know their order has been placed at their front door. 

Step 5: Make Marketing Organic and Authentic

In this precarious climate, you may resist the use to market to your guests for fear of looking opportunistic. You can avoid this by taking a “let’s help each other” messaging approach. With more of the population facing home confinement, a message of caring and honesty makes a genuine and lasting impact. 

Some marketing and messaging suggestions include:

• Have your top leaders and owners post to social media instead of your marketing team. This may sound counterintuitive but their lack of polish will make their message feel more authentic. 
• Be forthcoming and honest in your messaging. Everyone is facing a new set of challenges right now, so encourage guests to do business with you so you can provide them with freshly prepared foods brought directly to them.
• Ask guests to post a review on Yelp that describes the great experience they had with your take-out and delivery.
• On social media, post photos of your team members wearing gloves or sanitizing the kitchen to emphasize cleanliness. If you are donating food to local charities, make sure to spread the social word.
• Besides bounceback coupons, you can include kids coloring books and crayons, small toys and games, or cookies with a handwritten message to make a heartfelt connection with guests.

No one knows what the next few days and weeks will hold for the foodservice industry. By putting these strategies in place, restaurants can work  to weather the coronavirus storm and ultimately come through with a stronger brand identity in their communities and a more efficient business overall.

In Q2 of 2019, most restaurants experienced management turnover at a rate of 39%. However, GM compensation at full-service restaurants increased by 1.7%, and in limited-service establishments increased by 2.3%.

The interesting point is that a significant share of restaurants report that they are understaffed at the rate of 52% for non-GM staff, and 19% for General Managers. Further research, provided by Gallup, shows that 49% of General Managers are not engaged. The reason for this is a substantial lack of balance between work life and home life. Managers are more likely to be committed and opt to stay when they have adequate work-life balance. Only 11% of General Managers strongly agree that their job allows them to spend enough quality time with their family and friends.

While the balance of work and life is essential, so is recognition. Recognition goes a long way in building commitment and engagement. Only 32% of all managers polled noted that they received recognition or praise for doing a good job in the last seven days. More interestingly, is that only 27% of General Managers surveyed strongly agree that the mission and purpose of their organization make them feel like their job is important. When employees strongly agree with the company mission and purpose, 92% plan on continuing to work for the company one year from now.

Restaurant owners need to remember that your General Manager is the most valuable asset you have and they are the shepherd of your sheep. They bear all the responsibility for maintenance, food, beverage, labor costs, ongoing training, and hiring. They are the person that the police and fire department calls in the middle of the night and they deal with every possible problem that arises daily.

When we distill these statistics down, what we believe to be true is your General Managers will be happier and more engaged if your company culture, mission and purpose is clearly stated and lived by all. Managers want a predictable schedule with two days off per week so they can have some balance in life, allowing time to see their kids baseball and soccer games. A little praise and recognition for a job well done will go a long way in building commitment and loyalty. Equally important is financial appreciation. We strongly recommend creating a realistic bonus program that is achievable based on key performance metrics the General Manager can control. Finally, most Managers want health care benefits or some form of stipend to offset their health insurance costs. Being mindful of these crucial elements will help you create an environment where your managers can thrive.