World over, the restaurant industry is possibly facing its worse crisis yet. With Covid induced lockdowns still in place across most major cities, restaurant revenues have been at zero for the last few months - meaning businesses owners are now struggling to come up with the funds they need to pay rent and salaries to keep their restaurants open. In addition, during the crises, most countries have not had any policies in place to help restaurants come out of the crises just bruised, but not battered.
However, the situation is not much better in cities where lockdowns have been lifted to certain degrees, allowing for reopening restaurants and other public areas. And the reason for this is multi-fold.
First, even though lockdowns have been lifted, the uncertainty and fear caused by the virus still remain. In the current scenario, people prefer to be at home and avail of deliveries and take away so as to reduce their social interactions. And even when customers do decide to dine in at a restaurant, it is more often to celebrate an occasion than just a random night out with friends and family.
Second, restaurants themselves have had to reduce the number of tables they have on their premises so as to comply with social distancing norms. This in turn automatically affects their bottom line as they can now only serve a limited number of customers at any point of time. Additionally, they’ve also had to cut down on staff as well. Both the front and back of the house teams have been reduced drastically.
Most of the employees who have been retained are those who can multitask and offer more in different job roles than for the one they have been retained. The big guns who pulled heavy salaries are being put under the spotlight, and time and effort is now being spent to find the right people, with processes and measures being put together to keep the business afloat.
Third, many restaurants, especially in Dubai, had become used to offering average meal and beverage options for exorbitant prices. However, with people now choosing to dine out sparingly, such restaurants need to up their game as such as offering is no longer going to cut it. In fact, this period of lockdown has had the most impact on fine dining restaurants because people are now looking for more value for money. And with the current scenario, it doesn’t seem like this sphere of dining is going to improve interest and earnings for the next couple of years.
However, it is not all doom and gloom. Restaurants that will survive this onslaught on their business are those whose owners take the necessary steps to keep their business agile and evolving.
A great example is that of Noma, who have opened a burger pop up for the time being as they deal with losing customers for their fine dining offering. People have also been taking pay cuts for the time being to help the businesses they work at recover and have a better chance of surviving in the long run.
And as you can possibly see around you if you live in a city where the lockdown has been lifted, many restaurants are back to doing a good amount of business. It may be not how they used to run things pre-lockdown, but by evolving and changing to fit today’s scenario, they have managed to stay afloat.
This means if you can take the necessary steps to keep your restaurant and its offerings relevant in today’s times, and you hire right, you can ride the storm that is this pandemic and come out the other end reasonably unscathed.