By Yakshit Bose, Contributor

The entire world is already reeling under the monstrous effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. So far it caused huge losses for lives, livelihood, businesses, and infrastructures all around the world. And sadly, the pandemic isn’t close to being over – especially in the US. The panic and the threat is far from over.

But at the same time people, governments and businesses are trying hard to resume their normal course of activities. As the World Health Organisation (WHO) already declared the contagion to be part of the new normal of our lives, businesses and establishments are considering measures to continue operation with appropriate safety measures.

Restaurants and food joints bearded the worst of the crisis since public places and indoor businesses had to remain shut to contain the contagion. But now, the situation is slowly changing and the restaurants around the world are devising unique and innovative measures to stay operational while maintaining optimum safety for their customers and staff members.

The silver lining is that many restaurants and food chains have come up with unique ideas and measures to run their businesses while thoroughly following the government ruled social distancing procedures. While some of these measures involve the use of the latest available technologies, there are other unique measures that are devised by restaurant management and staff as creative solutions to deal with the crisis.

Here we are going to explain some of these effective, unique, and tech-focused solutions to maintaining social distancing in restaurants or contactless restaurants. Some of these ideas won’t pertain to your business until restrictions are loosened up, but it’s still a good idea to see what others are doing around the globe and prepare for it.

Prioritizing Doorstep Delivery & Pickup

Restaurants have been prioritizing food delivery and curb-side pickup during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We know we bring this up a lot, but it is the closest thing to “normal business” most restaurants are able to achieve right now. We’ve especially have seen this among restaurants in large cities. When in-house dining closed, they coped with the coronavirus crisis by giving more priority to doorstep delivery and curb-side/self-pickup of foods from the counters. This has also been the most successful measure during the time when the pandemic was at its worst.

Obviously, the restaurant food delivery and pickup will reduce the exposure of your customers, making it an effective way to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The food aggregator apps, in this respect, have played a viral role and their delivery network helped to provide food to millions of people while helping restaurants keep their doors (metaphorically) open. As social distancing will continue to rule our public life for the near future, doorstep delivery from restaurants will get more momentum than ever before.

Transparent Physical Barriers at Restaurant Tables

A restaurant an Amsterdam has created glass domes that allow guests to eat while abiding social distance guidelines with other guests.

From large plastic covers shielding a person up to their shoulder to the glass made intersecting table divider, we are starting to see some innovative ways dine-in restaurants around the world are facilitating social distancing among their in-house guests.

Some restaurants in Amsterdam even made canal-side glass domes for individual diners to dine and watch the canal-side view. These items seem a bit silly (and they for sure look silly), but these innovations are ensuring that friends and family can still enjoy dining out experiences while still respecting a certain level of safety measures.

Social Distancing Mode for Table Booking

Many restaurants are exercising social distancing norms for their dinning in customers by changing the table booking system and making people sit with adequate distance. This is being possible through a custom table booking system that allows seat booking only by maintaining safe distance among the diners.

Since restaurants are places of socializing and mingling, they are most exposed to the threats of the contagion than all other public places. This is why maintaining distant sitting is so important for preventing the spread of the virus in restaurant environments. Thanks to such systems, individuals while booking restaurant tables will be assigned specific seats separated by enough distance from one another.

Minimizing Your Restaurant’s Dining-In Capacity

Restaurants that are open for in-house guests are limiting their capacity to help contain the spread of COVID-19.

One Swedish restaurant made the news by serving one dinner to a lucky customer every day. While this may be a very extreme example of the kind of measures restaurants are taking to maintain social distancing, most operators agree that reducing their dining-in capacity is a necessary compromise.

As the glare of the pandemic is far from over, the restaurants are cutting their capacity to a minimum. This will help to make people sit with enough distance from one another while still allowing some sense of “normal business” operations. The main fallout, however, this is the hole created for the business bottom line and its impact on staff salary, food pricing, etc.

Conclusion

It is a matter of utter frustration for many of us that we simply do not know when COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing crisis will finally be over and some sense of normalcy will return to our lives. Even if the vaccine arrives sometime around the end of this year, it is very unlikely that preventive measures like social distancing will vanish from public life and activities anytime soon. Naturally, restaurants need to remain prepared to operate with these new constraints and corresponding measures as mentioned above.

Author Bio:

Yakshit Bose is the Senior Developer at leading custom Wordpress development services company CMARIX Technolabs Pvt. Ltd. He is an experienced WordPress developer. He likes to share his thoughts on web development, CMS development, and technology news.