By Michael Davis, Contributor

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it quite challenging for existing restaurants to survive the social distancing protocols and economic fallout. Moreover, it has made opening a new business even harder.

Starting a new restaurant is already stressful in the best of times. Add in a global pandemic into the picture and the situation is nothing less of a nightmare.

However, if you’re thinking about opening a new online restaurant business during the pandemic, we assure you that it’s absolutely executable. Here are eight tips to consider for it.

1. Think About the Guests’ Demands Right Now

Food delivery bag left at a house front door.

American consumer’s habits and preferences have significantly changed during the pandemic. Online sales have skyrocketed while in-house business has sunk. In the domain of restaurants, people are generally seeking freshly-cooked meals delivered at their doorsteps as opposed to dining in. This is in part due to local capacity rules, but it also assures minimum social interaction and prevents the spread of diseases.

You’ll need to decide if you’re going to build your own delivery fleet or work through third-party apps or a mix of the two.

This plays well into starting up an online restaurant, as your main avenues of business will be delivery and take-out anyways. But also think of other demands your locals may be having such as trouble finding specific grocery items, paper or cleaning products. Expanding your online restaurant to offer these other essentials can turn your restaurant into a one-stop shop for those in your neighborhood.

2. Think About Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Since most of us are connected through our mobile devices as a substitute for in-person social interactions, it is crucial that your online restaurant creates a digital marketing strategy to target new guests. Create restaurant logo design and promote it, communicate transparently with your customers, stay true to your customers and your brand, and you’ll thrive.

Even though marketing may be very difficult right now because of restrictions on physical gatherings, your restaurant can cash in on digital advertising as well as customer referrals for traffic by giving other businesses access to your email list. The key is to make sure it’s worthwhile content and offers your guests will enjoy; otherwise, you run the risk of alienating them.

Your digital strategy should also include a social media strategy. With the pandemic taking away physical social interactions, social media is your best option for creating meaningful bonds with your guests.

Use social media in your marketing strategy to engage and interact with customers. Share your upcoming deals, behind-the-scenes of your restaurant, and increase their excitement about your brand. And don’t just post. Interact with your guests in every digital avenue that you can. Become a personality, not just a business account.

3. Create an Easy-To-Navigate Website

Hand holding a mobile phone showing an online restaurant menu. Blurred in the background is a hamburger and bowl of soup.

As an online restaurant, you’re naturally going to own a website where your customers could order.

Create a simple and easy-to-navigate website where people can find what they’re looking for right away. List categories on the main menu as well as floating sidebar for easy navigation and provide a search bar too.

Moreover, have related items displayed at the bottom of the page as well – such as address, contact info, social links, and hours of operation. This will help your customers make choices faster.

4. Give Guests Fast Checkout Options

A way you can give your customers a convenient experience on your restaurant’s website is to offer one-page checkout system. This is where a customer can check out from the page they found their required item on without having to add it into a cart and check out from a different page.

Having a combination of both traditional checkout system as well as one-page checkout system will make for a faster checkout experience for your guests.

5. Provide Transparent Delivery Details

Hand holding a mobile phone looking at a restaurant menu. Blurred in the background is a restaurant worker with two delivery bags in hand.

Online restaurants are a new way of having dinner; it’s only natural that people are going to have questions.

To prevent confusion, provide crystal clear delivery details on your website’s header and footer. The details must include:

How long it would take to deliver menu items.
Your contact-free restaurant delivery policy.
What happens if the guest isn’t at home at the time of the delivery.
A list of the areas you provide delivery in
Your service hours.

Answering these questions before your customers have the chance to ask them offers great transparency for your customers.

6. Don’t Forget About Curbside Pickup

Offering delivery is great during the pandemic, but you can expand your options to include curbside pickup as well. While some people prefer getting their food delivered at home, others feel like it’s easy to pick up their order from the curbside while they’re out for some work. They use it as an excuse to get out of the house and save on delivery fees.

Offering multiple options for delivery and pickup will increase convenience and ease while ordering at your restaurant, which will increase your customer satisfaction.

7. Offer Various Payment Options

Restaurant guests stand outside, inline, socially distanced and wearing masks, waiting to pickup takeaway from a local restaurant.

Lastly, it is crucial that you offer different payment options to your customers. You may include the options of cash on delivery, credit card payments, or paying through third-party apps.

Make sure your payment options are secure and reliable. Moreover, offering gift cards and loyalty cards on your website will also help in supporting your online restaurant business and build repeat business.

Wrapping Up

In this article, we discussed seven tips to consider while opening an online restaurant during the pandemic. Starting a new business during the pandemic may be difficult considering the new restrictions and protocols for social interactions, but it isn’t impossible. Follow the tips given in the article to thrive in the competition and make your restaurant a customer-favorite during the pandemic.

About the Author
Michael Davis is a freelance marketer and writer. Businesses reach out to him for marketing strategies, industry insights, and planning for the way forward. Apart from that, he loves gaming, scrolling Twitter, and sitting in coffee shops completing the first draft of his book.

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