BUSINESS: Now’s the Time to Offer Delivery
With most bars and restaurants shut down from in-house dining, now’s the time to start offering delivery options, if you haven’t yet. Over the past year and a half, we’ve run a handful of posts talking about the ins & outs, benefits and drawbacks of delivery. So, whether you go with a third-party app or turn your wait staff into in-house delivery drivers, here are some stories to get you started:
What’s the Best Third-Party Food Delivery Service for Restaurants?
Should Your Restaurant Go with In-House Restaurant Delivery or a Third-Party Service?
Operators Beware: Choose Your Third-Party Delivery Service Partner Wisely
We’re covering topics like this and more in today’s live video chat, How Restaurants Can Survive the Coronavirus Epidemic, starting at 5pm ET/2pm PT.
DID YOU KNOWS…
SupportResaurants.org
Due to the impact that the coronavirus COVID-19 has had on the restaurant community, a collective of restaurant industry professionals have set a national initiative in motion to get funds into the hands of restaurants now, even if they are temporarily closed. The idea is selling “dining bonds” which are like a savings bond where your guests can purchase a “bond” at a value rate to be redeemed for face value (i.e., a $100 bond would sell for $75) at a future date. SupportRestaurants.org has set up the initiative, so give them a visit for more info, but this might not be a bad way of bridging the cashflow gap short-term.
Why Social Distancing is Important
To illustrate the effectiveness of social distancing measures, let’s consider the following example. Starting off with one infected person, the virus spreads and the number of cases doubles every four days. 36 days into the outbreak, we have 512 cases and Government A decides to do something. It implements social distancing measures that, for the sake of simplicity, immediately bring the doubling time from four days up to eight days. Meanwhile Government B doesn’t think it’s necessary to do anything and lets the virus spread unchecked. Three and a half weeks later, 60 days into the outbreak, Government A is dealing with 4,096 cases while Government B is looking at more than 30,000 cases.
How Coronavirus is Changing Consumer Behavior
There’s no doubt that coronavirus has changed how we all live, and it’s probably not short-term change either. A Nielsen investigation has identified six key consumer behavior threshold levels that tie directly to concerns around the novel coronavirus outbreak. The thresholds offer early signals of spending patterns, particularly for emergency pantry items and health supplies, and we are seeing these patterns being mirrored across multiple markets.
Coronacrisis: Day 7
DAY 7 OF THE COVID-19 RESTAURANT CRISIS
Why it matters to you: There is no way to know when this will all end.
Whether you mark the beginning of this crisis from the first cases in December or, as we are, from the major cancellation of sporting events last Thursday, the count of how long this will last is going to grow. No one has any idea how bad it’s going to get, but a total ban on restaurants remains a possibility according to Doctor Anthony Fauci, who is leading the Center for Disease Control’s response to the pandemic. At the 4:25 point in this video from Face the Nation on Sunday, Fauci discusses the possible steps. Many of them have already been implemented state by state, but the Federal government has yet to mandate those closures.
As you can’t have missed, we are doing a Live Chat on Thursday at 5pm ET/2pm PT. During that call we will discuss with a lawyer some of the things you can be doing now to prepare for a long closure of your business, a top industry marketer about how to market to your new deliver/carryout reality, and a professional from DIRECTV to help you decide how to manage your subscriptions while the shutdown continues.
None of us could have prepared for this and many of you have questions. We will definitively discuss how The Daily Rail and SportsTV Guide will continue and how we can support you during this crisis. Remain safe and when the dust settles, then we can discuss how you return in what will clearly be a very new restaurant reality. See you all tomorrow at 5pm ET/2pm PT.
[SOURCE: Modern Restaurant]
