How to Bounce Back with Takeaway and Deliveries

How your business can jink the social distancing challenges with deliveries and takeaways.

If you are a restaurant, cafe, pub, shop or hotel, and you have seen your establishment close temporarily, side-stepping coronavirus with takeaways and deliveries could be a way forward for your business. 

So far during the Covid 19 health challenge, we have seen any business that can stay open will. Your business brings the taste of vibrance while bringing culture to your community. If you are in the position to completely adapt to these unprecedented times, this may give you some ideas to you build those blocks for a takeaway and delivery system. 

It is important to remember if you are going to commit to deliveries, you must be at the forefront of the fight to protect the public and your employees. That means your delivery drivers too. Even if you have outsourced your delivery efforts, it is important to practice social distancing and protecting your delivery drivers who are exposed the most to the virus. Ensure they are given necessary sanitary equipment. That means sanitisers and relentless good practice of contactless payments. 

While you’re here, this blog is not intended as professional advice. It is what we are seeing businesses around the world are doing in these unprecedented times. We wanted to bring this to your attention to inspire you. We hope you find this piece engaging.

Building your online menu 

First things first, look at your current menu find the most profitable items on it. Ask yourself, is it easy to deliver? Can you make this dish with your current workforce? The upside to reconfiguring what works for your business in this time is you will have reduced stock while your chefs may even become more efficient than they already have been with a focused delivery menu. 

Now, just because we are changing things up a little bit does not mean we are going to sacrifice quality for our customers. In fact, it is even more important you perform in your taste delivery skills rather than your distribution skills. We want your customers to keep coming back for your delicious meals. 

If you are going to go back into business it is important to look at the business. That means having an attractive menu ready for the eyes to consume. You can design your new menu here on Canva or Adobe Spark.  

If you don’t already have a website, Wix and Squarespace offer free restaurant menu creation that you can show off to your customers online. The upside is there are tonnes of different designs you can use for your website – so, within a few hours, your website could be up and running for free. 

Tell everyone

You obviously have a popular restaurant, that means you have some sort of following on social media. Ask them if they’d like to see you re-open for deliveries and takeaways only. The guys and gals at the Black Bull in Drogheda nailed it by getting their community involved. 

Within a few days they were back open to open for business. 

If you believe you are ready to open up again, make sure to announce it to the world. Do it through social media, on your website and through your online mailing list. 

Practice time surgery 

If you are a customer of Bizimply, on your dashboard you will be able to see labour costs combined with labour sales to see what sort of turnover you are doing everyday. You will also be able to easily drag and drop your shifts and reschedule them to meet the demands of your new kitchen concept. The software will help you plan a little bit ahead during these unprecedented times – if you need any help make sure to contact our support team. 

Rehome

If you are not in the position to reopen, make sure to rehome your fresh produce to the vulnerable who are cocooing in their home at this time. The guys at Brother Hubbard rehomed their stock to the vulnerable so they didn’t have to worry about going outside. All thanks to the help of Hussey Fruit and Veg who helped distribute the fresh stock. 

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions for rehoming all our food stock during the shutdown, much appreciated.

Delighted to be able to help out @hughshousedub and @ICHHDUBLIN during this ill wind!

Be safe and well, and see you soon Xx pic.twitter.com/PSuFD5cerX

— Brother Hubbard Cafes (@BroHubbardCafes) March 15, 2020

Front of house: adapt and overcome

Some of your waiters and waitresses might be finding it tough right now that they cannot be the same assistance as your chefs and kitchen porters. A really easy option, instead of signing up to a delivery service, is to ask your FOH (license and documentation provided) if they’d be interested in working with you as a delivery driver instead. Make sure to work out an agreement in insurance and fuel money. You both need eachothers help. 

If this is not an option, speak to your neighbours and see what they are doing when it comes to deliveries. Maybe they are using third party delivery systems like Uber Eats, Deliveroo or Just Eat. Either way, try and find a distribution system that works best for your business. 

Get Creative!

You do not have to be a restaurant to do deliveries. The Headline Bar, located on Lower Clanbrassil Street in Dublin 8 teamed up with a local brewery to create their very own IPA for home deliveries.

In the spirit of keeping ourselves busy we'll be teaming up with a local independent brewery to sell great beer online, and delivery is available with reason. Would you use this service ? pic.twitter.com/rpNujxnCHN

— 57ᴛʜᴇʜᴇᴀᴅʟɪɴᴇ (@57theheadline) March 16, 2020

Needless to say the possibilities are endless.