One of the many industries that have been hit hardest by Coronavirus is the food and restaurant industry. The practice of social distancing, along with state and national recommendations, closures, and guidelines has created tremendous complications for standard business operations with regard to restaurants—especially locally owned and operated establishments.
Fortunately, restaurants can finally re-open their doors to customers, but this of course means that food establishments must take extra precautions when reopening for business. Dallas Janitorial Services is here to offer a few pointers when it comes to keeping your establishment safe from the threat of this devastating pandemic.
Follow your company’s communication and safety policies
There’s a big difference between how franchisees and chain restaurants will respond to the virus compared to that of individually owned small businesses, primarily because there is a different infrastructure in place. If you own your own business, for example, your city, county, or state may have regulations and guidelines for how you can and should be cleaning your restaurant for opening, as well as how you can keep it clean on an ongoing basis as our country recovers from the Coronavirus.
If you are a franchise owner or manage a chain restaurant, the first thing that you want to do is to check the communication and safety policies of your corporation. Many chains and bigger companies are issuing their own communications on safety policies, and it is of course best practice to adhere to these policies when cleaning to protect your team and your customers from the virus.
Routine personnel cleaning procedures
Washing hands and personal hygiene is another simple, yet critical aspect of keeping your restaurant clean and safe during the pandemic. You may already have reminders posted in your kitchen, bathrooms, and public use areas encouraging everyone to wash their hands; the best practice is to continue to impress upon your team and your customers that their health and the health of others are of the utmost importance. Therefore, everyone in the establishment needs to be washing their hands and sanitizing regularly. More So than they would in normal societal conditions.
Make sure that you frequently verbalize and indicate for your customers what precautions you are actively taking to keep them safe during these times. Many customers may be understandably hypersensitive to a smudge on the table, so avoid discomfort by frequently spot cleaning your tables, counters, and seats. Your customers seeing you clean frequently will bring them comfort when they’re in your establishment, and it will also remind them of their own hygienic practices when visiting your business.
Routine establishment cleaning procedures
Regardless of the size of your restaurant, every restaurant has a standard of health and safety that they are required by law to meet. Now, more than ever, it is important to honor routine cleaning procedures consistently; this means everyone on your team is doing their part to clean. Servers, bussers, hosts, chefs, managers and assistant managers should all be contributing their efforts to clean their work areas. This also means you must be diligent about cleaning the dining and sitting areas where customers will congregate.
In short, when it comes to cleaning and sanitation, you are simply going to have to step up your game—the virus has been compared to being as messy and free-moving as glitter. Every fork, table, plate, and a menu will be covered in germs after a customer has left your establishment. If you take it seriously, however, you will keep your establishment a safe place to dine.
Extreme and high-risk scenario cleaning recommendations
The state of Texas, and our beloved Dallas, has undoubtedly been hit hard by the virus. Depending on where you are in the Dallas Fort Worth area, your restaurant may be at a higher or lower risk of exposure to the virus. If you are in a high-risk area, this is, of course, means raising your cleaning and hygiene standards and changing or updating your policies and procedures to include the following:
- The use of masks in your restaurant.
- Separating customers at a safe distance.
- Limiting your staff to only what is necessary.
- Limiting the number of customers you are willing to serve at one time.
- More frequent cleanings and deep cleanings of your establishment.
If you are in a high-risk area, make sure that you are monitoring your team and employees’ health closely. Remind them of your ill employee policy and that they need to take that seriously at all times. If you believe that any of them may be sick or at risk or if they do, send them home or tell them to stay home. This will be an ongoing process that will probably require training, seminars, reminders and accountability to make sure that your team stays on top of strict hygiene and sanitization standards.
Hiring a Dallas janitorial services staff
The demands of cleaning and maintaining a restaurant at this level can be exhausting and time-consuming. If you need help with cleaning and sanitizing your restaurant, contact our Dallas Janitorial Services team today, so that we can help you do what we do best.
