FOOD & DRINK
COME DINE SAFELY
When the hospitality industry finally opens, staff and customers will be understandably nervous about picking up the coronavirus from one another. Jeremy Bennett from Tork manufacturer Essity shares some cleaning and hygiene tips and insights to help keep everyone safe.
July is a big month for the UK catering and hospitality industry. After being forced to close or switch to a takeaway-only operation, restaurants and bars are set to reopen this month provided that new COVID-19 infections stay low.
Everyone is nervous. Remaining in close proximity to other people – particularly indoors – still represents a real risk to customers and staff.
New systems will need to be established from day one to reduce the level of interaction between staff and customers. There will also be a major focus on cleaning and hygiene with frequent hand-washing being promoted and tables being cleaned thoroughly between guests.
It will be the hospitality industry, but not as we know it. Bustling pubs and intimate restaurants where customers interact with each other and the staff could be a thing of the past.
Instead we could see spaced-out tables divided by perspex screens. We will also have little contact with the masked waiting staff who will spend much of their time cleaning and sanitising while we order our food and drinks via our phones.
Hospitality outlets are understandably uneasy. They are facing a future with fewer customers plus bigger bills for cleaning products, sanitisers and PPE. Since the whole point of the industry is to make guests feel welcome, will they continue to attract customers if rigid new protocols make the experience more of an ordeal than a pleasant night out?
40 | TOMORROW’S FM
Restaurants and bars will have to come up with clever new ways of enhancing the customer experience when the ‘new normal’ kicks in, and many are doing just that.
For example, in countries where hospitality is reopening before the UK, restaurants are promoting social distancing by ensuring that some seats are already ‘occupied’ when guests arrive. Objects such as cardboard cut-outs, cartoon dragons and mannequins have been used in restaurants in the US, Australia, Germany and Thailand to take up seats and indicate to diners where they may safely sit. In many cases these dummies or cut-outs have been chosen to suit the restaurant’s theme, adding to the ambiance and providing an Instagram opportunity.
Meanwhile, managers of fast food outlets and café-bars have been introducing a fun element by giving customers ‘socially-distancing hats’ to wear. Some Burger King outlets in Germany are offering sombrero-sized crowns to keep people apart, while a chain of German café bars is offering broad hats in the shape of helicopter propellers.
In Amsterdam, the Mediamatic Eten restaurant has built a series of small greenhouses overlooking the canal where groups of guests can dine in isolation. These are proving very popular and are booked up well in advance.
However, social distancing is not the only defence against COVID-19. Rigorous attention also needs to be paid to hand hygiene and cleaning in order to keep staff and customers safe.
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