As we are heading in the second month of this state of COVID 19 emergency, what really interests us is how restaurants can survive amid the pandemic. Employers are firing valuable and responsible people, their trustworthy and loyal employees because weekly revenues are under the ground. Restaurants depend on weekly income to maintain and at least pay back costs, those businesses are very fragile in times with social distancing measure. Navigating the economic shock brought on by the pandemic containment initiatives is a tough task. This industry is one of tight cash flow and low margins. Workforce place reliance on this job for living and covering basic needs. Many small and independent restaurants would not be able to re-open after the pandemic measures are away. Restaurants in most countries will remain closed for another month ahead.
“So, the CoviD shutdowns are probably the biggest existential crisis this industry has ever faced”, said the executive vice president, public affairs National US restaurant Association.
By its nature this business is based on social gatherings and relies on people’s bravery to go out. In times when social distancing is followed as norm, this industry has to make a shift and readapt. The question that many of the restaurant owners are asking and keep posing is “Could the delivery service possibly sustain a restaurant business?”
“The food industry was operational even during the world wars. Never has the industry been shut like this”, said Ankit Mehrotra, Co-Founder & CEO, Dineout.
Coronavirus created an unprecedented challenge for the restaurants’ society. One of the opportunities that businesses were left with was to unexpectedly shift their focus on online orders take-away in just an overnight.
Two years ago when the delivery apps started getting popular, they enjoyed 20 to 30 percent commissions. The revenues that restaurants gained from deliveries were never a reliable enough profit for some places, which did not rely on it. Now, restaurants are being supported by those online service providers, the lower the commission, the bigger chance for survival.
Any manager or owner in this sector had to face the difficulty of partly releasing their staff and had to redesign the daily agenda of the rest, including their own. Restaurants are trying to support some salaried staff that they have kept on by giving them the option to become delivery staff or take a packaging position. Overall, it is an appreciated temporary measure but who knows until when? Switching gears to delivery business opens immediate reaction of the greater power of competition.
Customers are now even pickier about the safety and hygiene measures adopted. Restaurant staff that has the opportunity to work is devoted to cleanliness, the health of their customers and safety regulations are consistently applied. Their own investment in proactive sanitation procedures is coming from a very sacral humanly place. They do not want to spread the disease in the community, responsibility the chefs bear is for the health of others. It is not only because of government precautionary measures, sanitary environment has always been the case in restaurants even though experts’ opinion states that the virus cannot be transmitted through consumption of food.