April 2020: How Can Restaurants Adapt to COVID-19?

How Can Restaurants Adapt to COVID-19? These are unprecedented challenges we are facing as an industry. One of the questions we are getting asked the most within our network is “what are other restaurant & hospitality owners/executives doing during this time?” RestaurantZone’s audience of over 100+ small, medium and large sized firms across the US, Canada, and parts of Asia, puts us in a unique position to provide insight. Over the course of the past couple weeks, I’ve had very insightful and interesting conversations with our clients. Below are just a few of them:

1) “How can we serve our customers outside of our four walls?” Many of our clients are being forced to get creative and adapt. Key shifts are being made at all sorts of restaurants to focus on Takeout, Delivery and Online Delivery (Seamless, Yelp/Grubhub, Doordash, UberEats, Postmates, etc.). Feeding people in this crisis is important. Dominos CEO announced recently the hiring of 10,000 workers to help support this initiative and the take-out demand. With all this being said, pairing safety and cleanliness remains of utmost important during these times as well.

2) Pipelining candidates for when things normalize and return. Danny Meyer at Union Square Hospitality announced an 80% layoff of his staff. He also predicts “It’s going to take a month to recruit our entire team back and train them”, in this interesting article here. Many of our retained clients are staying ahead of the curve and they’re doing a couple things. a) hiring key positions now b) interviewing and keeping a pipeline of key talent & preparing for the future. While there is turbulence in the market, our RestaurantZone recruiters are seeing about a ~50% increase in movement in the talent market because of layoffs and the uncertainty! There has also been a slight uptick in new clients retaining us to get ahead of this problem, as opposed to waiting. If you wait too long, you’ll be competing with even more businesses in restaurant/hospitality, who are all going to be fighting for the same high caliber talent, at the same time! With the coronavirus, RestaurantZone is also working to accommodate remote video interviews and phone interviews. For more information on how you can stay ahead of the curve please fill out an inquiry here. 

3) Government Assistance Programs. While we are in the midst of a $2 Trillion Stimulus package. It’s important to keep monitoring the news for government support. In particular areas you can apply for Disaster Loan Assistance here: https://disasterloan.sba.gov/. For more information on SBA disaster assistance, the customer service center can be reached at 1-800-659-2955 or by e-mail at disastercustomerservice@sba.gov. Clients have reported that they are very responsive and supportive!

Finally, I wanted to let you know during the COVID-19 pandemic, RestaurantZone is ensuring continuity of our services. Our team is working overtime and weekends to best support current clients and new clients. Email us here if you need anything or reach me directly at the contact below, we’re happy to best support you however we can!

PS: If you haven’t heard yet, tell Congress to Support Restaurants and Our Employees. Help the industry by calling on President Trump and Congress to support you and your industry. 259,731 people & counting are already supporting this initiative by the National Restaurant Association. Send your Support Here!