Restaurants are entering into the phase where they are starting to reopen in many areas. They are not going full force into that situation, they are adjusting their procedures to keep their employees and customers safe while the pandemic is ongoing. In Hong Kong, a restaurant group has put out a COVID-19 playbook for restaurants and it is being used extensively.
Syed Asim Hussain founded the Black Sheep Restaurants group along with Christopher Mark. They currently have 25 establishments in Hong Kong, including two that are Michelin-starred. CNN reports that they started to work on their restaurants in January when the coronavirus news began to break.
Hussain and Mark got together to come up with a plan that would affect the restaurant operation. Rather than keeping it to themselves, they decided to publish the 17-page manual so that other restaurants could use it. Hussain told CNN that it is in four different languages and emails have been received from around the world expressing the gratitude of the readers.
As new information about the novel coronavirus occurs, the handbook is updated. May 8 was the last time it was updated, and you can see it at this link. Included in the resource is information about cleanliness, guest relations, delivery, and much more. There are many things to learn from the reference but three of the most important include the need for customers and workers to wear masks, collecting travel and health history from customers, and using temperature checks when people enter the establishment.
The way that a restaurant operates me differ, depending on location. In the United States, most restaurants are limiting indoor seating capacity or going with outdoor seating only. The guidebook is a helpful reference and it shows how Black Sheep Restaurants have been operating at this time.