Creating a safe atmosphere for your customers is the best way to ensure your restaurant stays in business amidst COVID-19. It can be difficult, though, creating a safe environment in a space that wasn’t designed for social distancing. The following list of restaurant social distancing ideas can be a great place to start.
Keep reading to learn how to create an amazing social distancing restaurant and provide an amazing, safe experience for your customers.
What Is Social Distancing?
Social distancing works to lessen the spread of disease and viruses, most recently COVID-19.
The practice of social distancing your restaurant means helping your customers stay at least 6 feet apart. This reduces the contact customers have with each other and keeps the risk lower for transmitting or picking up COVID.
Why Is Social Distancing Important?
Creating a properly socially distanced restaurant is important for both your business and the well-being of your customers. By putting special precautions in place and ensuring employees and customers are following these precautions, you can:
- Limit the spread of germs and disease within your restaurant;
- Better control the amount of people in your restaurant at one time;
- Create a safe, comfortable environment for customers and employees;
- Ensure employees are taking proper safety and cleanliness precautions.
How to Create a Safe Socially Distant Space?
You will have to take a few steps and change your restaurant to create a socially distanced space. This will depend on the size and location of your restaurant, but we’ve got some universal tips that can work almost anywhere. Here are some of the best social distancing ideas for restaurants:
Use Clear Signs and Directional Arrows
Don’t assume your customers will know that they need to be socially distanced or how to do it. It can be easy to forget and slip back into old habits, and some customers may not even know about social distancing.
Placing signs notifying customers that they need social distance will let them know what’s expected. If you can, help out even more by placing directional arrows and tape to define how far apart people need to stand. This will help guide customers, and you’ll be able to easily tell if someone isn’t following precautions.
Place Sanitizers
Make it easy for both your customers and staff to stay as sanitary as possible. Hand sanitizer can’t replace hand washing, but it can certainly help cut back on surface contamination around your restaurant. It’s especially important to have hand sanitizers available if you don’t have a public bathroom space.
Close Self-Service Stations
Self-service stations not only create crowded areas in your restaurant but can be easily contaminated. If one person coughs or sneezes near condiments, lids, and straws, or salad bar selections, everyone is suddenly at risk. Having self-serve stations just aren’t worth the risk in a social distance restaurant.
Instead of self-serve stations, set systems in place to ensure customers can still get what they need. This may mean your employees retrieve items for customers or have tables already set up with condiments.
Install Physical Dividers
Despite your best efforts, there will be some areas of your restaurant in which social distancing will be enough. Sometimes, physical dividers will be the best option to ensure optimal safety when customers and staff have to be in close proximity.
Physical barriers will likely be needed at the check-out register, between cooks and wait staff in the kitchen, and anywhere else it’s impossible for people to be six feet apart. Luckily, these can easily be made out of cost-effective materials like plexiglass or plastic.
Prepare Online Menu and Ask Clients for Table Reservation
Socially distancing your restaurant likely means losing space, and your max capacity will likely be smaller. Let your customers know that they can expect longer wait times if they don’t make a reservation ahead of time.
In addition to taking reservations, you can also help keep your restaurant at a safe capacity by offering an online menu. This way, customers can still order if there is a long wait, and those who aren’t comfortable eating out just yet can still support you and take their meal to eat at home.
Be open to Delivery
This is a time of great uncertainty, and many of your would-be customers may not be comfortable enough to eat out just yet. Offering food delivery services from your restaurant can be a lifesaver for your business.
If you have never offered food delivery before, it’s important to have a plan in place. Create a clear process for taking and carrying out delivery orders, and ensure your staff is well-trained on how to fulfill them. Having a dedicated driver will be important, as well as investing in warm bags to keep food fresh for your customers.
Remove Tables and Seating Options
There should be at least ten feet in between tables and seating options in your restaurant. Accomplishing this will likely mean removing some of your current tables and seating options, but you don’t have to worry.
There are many creative ways you can properly space your tables and keep everyone distanced while still providing a great experience. You can limit large parties and set up more smaller-sized tables, create at-table barriers, and incorporate outdoor seating to maximize the space you have available.
Make Contactless Payment Accessible
Exchanging money is one of the most difficult processes to make socially distanced. If you can, make payments contactless at your restaurant. The easiest way to do this is having a contactless payment reader, but this will only work for cards with the technology to work with the machines.
For guests who don’t have contactless payment cards or apps on their phones, there are still precautions you can take. Envelopes can be used to put cash into and have employees pick them up from the tables instead of directly from customers. For cards that require signatures, sanitize pens in between uses.
Utilize Outdoor Space with Tents
If you have outdoor space available, don’t let it go to waste! According to the CDC, outdoor dining is less of a risk than indoor dining. Many of your customers will be looking for outdoor dining, and you’ll reap the benefits from having this available.
If you don’t have a dedicated dining area outdoors, you can easily create one with an event tent. Tents not only provide coverage from harsh weather but can instantly transform your outdoor space. Even a drab parking lot can be turned into an elegant dining area with a beautiful tent and some decorations.
Not sure what tent you should buy for your restaurant? American Tent has a variety of tent styles and sizes perfect for any outdoor space. The 10x20 pop-up tent can accommodate a small seating area, for example, and the larger 40x40 frame tent is perfect for a large outdoor dining space.
When your tent is secured, you can properly set up your seating area. Set up social distancing tables ten feet apart, including barriers if inclined. Add some simple tent decor, like uplighting, and your outdoor space is ready to go!
Conclusion
Keep your business thriving even amidst COVID by taking precautions to properly social distance your restaurant. We hope these tips help you safely set up your distanced space, indoors and out. If you’re looking for the perfect social distancing tent, make sure to view our high-quality tents perfect for your restaurant.
