Re-opening hospitality: Independents should seek help where they can
After three months of enforced closure to help stop the spread of Coronavirus COVID-19, pubs, bars, restaurants and hotels, have been given the green light by the Government to re-open in July.
This is welcome news for hospitality businesses who can bring valued staff back to work, serve customers and – crucially – make some money again.
However, restrictions around the way restaurants, pubs and hotels are permitted to operate, means the prospect of trading again may also be a daunting one, particularly for independent hospitality businesses.
While operators of multiple sites and those of single sites will be facing the same challenges in terms of implementing social distancing measures, navigating new health and safety guidance and reassuring staff and customers that things are safe, the former does have the luxury of dealing with it as a collective.
Multi-site operators may have a central team to work their way through the guidelines and advise managers how they should run their sites, or if there’s no central team, then those in charge of each site will at least have their peers to discuss similar issues with.
Independent restaurant, pub and hotel owners will be doing all this on their own, so understandably may be feeling apprehensive about re-starting, especially against such an uncertain backdrop.
There are, of course, many benefits to being a single-site operator: You can be agile, make decisions without consulting others and see rewards of your hard work faster than those working in a bigger company. However, when times are as challenging as these, they are small comfort, and it may take longer to see them.
One way to make re-opening less of a struggle as an independent operator is to get help where you can. This may require thinking more like a multi-site operator than a single-site one and using services that may have previously seemed out of reach due to your size.
After all, when it comes to inputting the new guidelines, there is little difference between chain and independent restaurants.
Talking to others in a similar situation can help, especially when it comes to deciphering Government guidance, so build networks with independent operators and find out what they are doing. Social media is a useful place to do this if you don’t have a support network in place already.
If you have previously disregarded technology, now might be the best time to embrace it and investigate the services on offer. Government advice for restaurants and other food businesses includes gathering the contact details of every customer and it suggests that customers order food and drink via their smartphones.
Using this time to ensure your EPoS system is fit for purpose and investigating the restaurant technology available to help you manage re-opening would be time well spent. There are a number of different options that can help make operations smoother and they may be easier to install, and less costly than you thought.
Remember, you can be proudly independent, but you don’t have to be too proud to seek help or adapt your hospitality business to help make it a success.
Visit the ‘Adapting your business in unprecedented times’ hub, where you’ll have access to useful information and resources on how you can adapt your hospitality business and help to support your teams through these unprecedented times.
