10 KEY TIPS on re-opening your restaurant post pandemic

It’s been difficult for many operators, and the only experience we can use to understand best how to come out of this situation is the learnings from past recessions or economic downturns. And common sense would tell you that starting a business in challenging economic times is a bad idea. As the current situation has caused companies to close and need to reopen, this is no different from starting a new business during hard times. Something one would generally advise against. Overcoming this challenge will truly define the entrepreneurs amongst us.  

Although I refer to restaurants in this article, the relevance of the below can be applied to many different types of businesses.

How do you plan to re-evaluate your strategy to help with the re-opening? 

1.   Re-visit your market research.

Initially, when you opened your business, you would have/should have completed a market study that explains why you chose that particular location. These factors would have included the demand generators around you (cinemas, tourist attractions, universities, malls, corporate offices, etc). However, these may have now changed. Some offices will have reduced their workforce size, universities will have fewer international students, tourist attractions will not have the same volumes, and it will take some time for malls and cinemas to become whole again. 

The first approach would be to look at diversifying your customer base. During an economic downturn, consumers become nervous and begin to cut back on non-essential expenses. For those who had experienced the last recession, you would have seen the wind down in spending at the early signs of an economic downturn. In this instance, this was happening during the lockdown. Therefore, a restaurant would require a more significant market segment or audience capture than before. It’s time to look for a wider audience. Those with a marketing team now need to re-evaluate the target audience and which new demographic they can attract, above and beyond the past target audience pre-crisis.

2.   Win the competition's customers

You must continue expanding your customer/client base if your business will prosper in tough times. This means drawing customers from your competition.

Consider offering more value or differentiating your product compared to what your competition or neighbouring businesses are offering. Research your competition and see what you can do to entice their customers into becoming your customers. How are your competitors advertising? Visit their business locations and find out what their consumers like or don't like about those businesses, then tweak your business practices accordingly.

• With the above in mind, evaluate the following:
• What demographics have changed in your segment/locality?
•  Who can be your new target audience, and how do you maintain the remaining past audience?
• Will you change the menu offering considering the consumer changes?
• What will be your new price point and value propositions?

Many new businesses are well-matched to succeed in economically challenging markets. However, even if your business is not ideally suited to a market slowdown, you may be able to modify your value proposition to conform to the realities of the market. For example, the home delivery model has kept businesses sustainable during the pandemic. The home delivery service will continue to be heavily relied upon for the coming months. Therefore, if you previously did not have this, adding home delivery to your business model is an ideal addition. When survival becomes an immediate goal, products that help businesses weather near-term economic storms become beautiful.

In addition, your initial market study findings would have defined your product offering and the price point based on the demographics and surrounding demand generators. The direct and indirect competition in the area would also determine your price point and the value-for-money proposition you offered. Could you ask yourself the question now? Is your price point correct, and what changes need to be made? 

3.   Re-evaluate your menus

Menu engineering is “cracking the code” in getting the most perceived value from the food you sell. This lets you set a price that pleases your guests and your bottom line. More than ever, this is required. How have people’s dining habits changed during the lockdown? I am sure people will eat much less of the food commonly available via home delivery during the lockdown as they probably have more than enough. In addition, home cooking has become more prevalent during this period, giving consumers an understanding of two factors. 1) The work it takes to deliver restaurant food and understand the skill required; 2) the actual cost to make particular dishes. Therefore, creative dishes were not readily available over the lockdown and items that were too complex to cook at home probably would have been missed over this period.

Adapt your menu to generate more profit by analysing the new customer demand, sales, margins, and theoretical vs. actual food costs. Re-engineering recipes to use lower-cost ingredients without compromising the taste can increase your bottom line. For example, if you use goat cheese in a recipe, experiment with swapping this ingredient with a mix of cream cheese and plain yoghurt or sour cream for an inexpensive substitute that only significantly changes the flavour profile.

4.   Re-evaluate your suppliers

Once your market study is complete, your menu is re-defined, and your price point set, you can start negotiating with your suppliers while you have the power to ensure you obtain the lowest prices before suppliers start to ramp them back up. Suppliers are in the same position as the restaurateurs. They need to discount and offer increased service to ensure their business recovers. So, could you make the most of this period to negotiate and find a long-term commitment?

Be sure to build strong relationships with several suppliers so you can stay in business if they go out of business over the coming months. Also, consider local suppliers/markets, as many large supply companies may keep prices high as their overheads are still high.

5.   Focus on your team and operations

Could you re-visit your operational systems before the re-opening? How you run your restaurant should always tie back to serving the needs of your target guests. However, we aim to find a more comprehensive demographic coupled with the added tasks of more stringent hygiene standards and implementing new policies.

• Standards for cleaning the front of the house, kitchen, restrooms and general area that people constantly touch
• How food is handled and rotated
• How guests are greeted and seated, with the post-Covid situation in mind
• Order flow and how orders move from the guest to the server to the kitchen
• Training standards and re-training the teams on product knowledge
• Consider the technology and software systems that must be updated to keep up with contactless capabilities such as no-contact ordering, pick and payment.

With most businesses reinventing online ordering and improving their technological presence, people rapidly acquired skills to take advantage of these features and feel much more comfortable with online orders, contactless app payments, virtual cook-a-longs and even happy hours.

6.   Think about the team cohesion

This situation has unfortunately placed more people out of work, with businesses closing and redundancies constantly being made. For the companies that continue, more talent will be available in the market, allowing you to recruit the ‘A’ team you have always been looking for. 

However, before considering replacing your existing team, one thing to note is that ‘great war stories create a loyal team’. Adversity brings couples closer together. It has been proven that the more arduous your collective journey, the stronger your team’s cohesion. The more trouble a person endures, the more excellent value they associate with the experience and the higher their loyalty to the team with whom they shared the challenges.

Make the most of the situation and bring the team together. Work as a unit to overcome the problem and create targets to be met with rewards for the business and the team members over the coming months. Unify yourselves and boost morale by constantly speaking about success and the future. 

7.   Train the team and increase productivity

In the past, restaurants have had such a high staff turnover rate, and it can sometimes feel like you need more work to train your staff. However, this can be nothing further from the truth, especially during these times. The most crucial element you can add to your business is to ensure consistent delivery of a high-quality guest experience by re-training your team to the specific standards of your brand.

You can reduce some of the inevitable problems during re-opening through good staff training and process enforcement. Make your restaurant team feel like they are part of a learning culture and give them support and opportunities for growth.

8.   Look for ways to trim your payroll 

Learn to operate lean and mean now. Review your productivity reports and see who your superstars are. Invest in your top talent now and get them focused on sales and cross-trained to help in other areas. Laying off several employees at one time will affect your staff’s morale, and all restaurants are only as good as the staff who supports them. However, for the business to survive, which includes the livelihood of many people, some difficult decisions may be made. 

For the first few months upon returning, business levels will not be what they were pre-crisis. You may need to adjust your hours of operation and even close a couple of days per week. If Sundays and Mondays are typically slow, why consider closing and running a 5-day process for now? From your market study, if lunch trade is slow, look to multiskilling the team and reduce certain positions.

However, be wary of cutting back too much staff at the risk of sacrificing customer service. Treat it like a new restaurant and wait to make any sweeping changes to your staffing schedule until you see patterns arise as businesses, tourism, and travel begin to return. 

9.   Invest in marketing

It often needs to be more stated in your restaurant marketing plan. You should think carefully about re-developing your marketing plan. Don't cut back on marketing. Many businesses make the mistake of cutting their marketing budget to the bone in lean times or eliminating it, but this is precisely when your business needs marketing the most. However, strategically plan where to spend the marketing bucks. 

Now is the time to negotiate with specific platforms that may have been out of your price range. For example, cinemas are closed, and the marketing departments of the cinemas would be looking at signing the subsequent advertiser, and now is the time to negotiate. Secure more extended agreements at lower rates for most ATL marketing needing the business.

Communication is key. Tell your customers you have re-opened and offer deals to welcome them back. As mentioned above, consumer budgets will have changed during the lockdown, so please consider their spending and give them offers.

10. Be Frugal

When there is a recession, it forces you to be frugal about your business activities, and this crisis should have you being even more economical as a recession usually recovers in a year or so. However, we do not have an end date for this pandemic yet. Because of the downturn, you’ll make it a point to search for the best prices and efficient business methods. You may do it this way simply because you have to, but in the long run, you’ll learn a vital lesson that can enable you to run a profitable business for years.

If you can re-launch and operate a successful business during this period, think of what you can accomplish once the economy booms again!

The Bottom Line 

Remember that it’s temporary. Economies are a constant cycle of ebbs and flows. Some are just bigger than others. Plenty of businesses made it through the 2008/09 recession and have flourished since. 

Nothing can guarantee success, but implementing these can help ensure your business survives the tough times and possibly even profits from them. It begins with analysing how you're doing things now and looking for ways to improve.

#innovation #management #digitalmarketing #technology #creativity #futurism #marketing #strategy #business #inspiration #SavvyIQ #Tech #restaurants