Restaurants, this is your time to shine!

Restaurant owners, you are now at the heart of our home-bound economy. And in an interesting twist of events, food delivery has made you an important link between us and the outside world. With that, you are now uniquely positioned, not just to feed our bellies, but to feed our souls as well.

If you are willing to be flexible, open minded and stay relevant over the next month or two (or three) as we move through this crisis, you can create profound relationships with your customers, find new ones and come out the other in an even better position than before.

Here are a few suggestions.

Keep pushing the sanitization and customer service messages
I noticed much of the promotion I’m seeing has stopped talking about sanitization procedures and is simply promoting product.  It’s way too soon for that and will most likely be an ongoing consumer concern months after businesses reopen.

Here’s a great message from a client of mine that hits all the right notes:
“Your continued support is what drives us. We are navigating this storm called Covid-19 with you as well as with millions of other small businesses around the country. We’ve abbreviated our menu, changed our hours and have stepped up sanitation protocols. All these changes have produced greater flexibility and understanding with meeting our customers’ requests. If you have any questions, concerns, comments or special request, don’t hesitate to contact us via phone, emails, DMs at any moment of the day. This is the right time to have open and flexible lines of communication.”

Continue to refine your menus, ordering windows and efficiencies

Hopefully, you have already migrated from your regular menu to family meals and “take and bake” options, etc. Keep refining that menu week after week to keep value and interest high. People are feeling the financial pinch and at the same time, getting bored and on the lookout for new meal options. Include the ability to pick up or deliver multiple meals, reducing delivery fees and human contact.  Create shortened ordering windows to allow you more time to prepare your food. And, of course, offer market staples like eggs, milk, meats, produce and bread as part of your menu.

Become a social connection
Just because your customers aren’t dining together doesn’t mean they aren’t still part of your tribe.
Invite your customers to stay connected with each other via your social platforms. Place a flyer in your to-go orders that asks customers to post a photo or video of them eating your food and tag you. Have a “dine out with each other night” and host a Zoom dinner. Ask customers to record a message of thanks to healthcare workers, grocery store workers or whomever else you want to honor and post them on your Facebook page. Invite customers to do a social media takeover for an hour or a day. People are craving a connection and you are in a unique position to facilitate that.

Become a purveyor of life’s little pleasures

As the new delivery connection, why not use the platform to bring more than just food into the lives of your customers – and help your local business neighbors at the same time? After multiple weeks in quarantine, people are starting to run out of candles, nice soaps and other things that make life bearable. Partner up with nearby stores to add these little pleasures to the menu. Also offer celebration opportunities like candlelit dinners.

I urge you to take a breath and remember, you are not just working on your short-term survival, you are building the foundation for a new and better business post-crisis.

Until next time, remember,
You can do this!
Angel