With Lockdown in full effect as of Thursday 26 March at midnight, restaurants; bars; clubs and a host of other hospitality services will be closed for the next 21 days. Undoubtedly this will cause a lot of stress for business owners waiting to see if and when they can return to work.
While the Lockdown will result in reduced profits and purs-strings tightening up, it’s not all doom and gloom. During this down-time, you have the perfect opportunity to sit down and refocus on your business.
Top 5 ways to spend your downtime:
1) Re-energise your Menu items: Dietary trends and tastes change over time; Eventually your regulars will have gone through your menu, now is the opportune time to spruce up your menu.
2) Menu-Engineering: While you are sprucing up your menu items consider revising your entire menu from top to bottom by weighing the profitability and popularity of all menu items and how these two factors impact the placement of the items on a menu to maximise profits.
3) Catch up on Admin: Owning and operating a restaurant is a lot of work, and with so much to do daily sometimes things like paperwork and admin get pushed aside. So take this opportunity to catch up on any admin that has been stacking up.
4) Strategise: Make full use of the 21 day Lockdown period to put together a plan of action to start to bring in business again once you can trade.
5) Leverage Social Media: This downtime won’t last forever, and people will always need food and to socialise so until you can open your doors keep in touch with your customers through social media platforms and update them with changes to your business. Above all else during these 21 days remember to look after yourselves, keep calm and continue to look forward.
