St. Louis, MO (StLouisRestaurantReview) All restaurant owners are asking themselves the same question, “what should I do to survive this pandemic and lockdown or capacity restrictions?”
With new strains of coronavirus surfacing daily, the near-term outlook is not good. Many people around the world were hoping that this pandemic would end soon with the vaccine’s arrival.
However, if the vaccines are effective against the various strains developing, it will still take a significant amount of time to manufacture, transport, and set up vaccination sites. Also, many people are scared to take the vaccine with noted side effects.
In the short-term and, more than likely, the intermediate-term, dine-in will remain restricted with periods of lockdown and delay in vaccinations.
Restaurant owners have the most overwhelming challenges.
Many restaurants were not profitable before the pandemic plagued society. No most are going deeper into the black hole, but trying to hold on for hopes of a better and day and support their staff.
If you want to survive the pandemic, you can survive only if you get into the game. What do we mean by “get into the game?”
Most restaurants lost money before the pandemic because most privately owned restaurants do NOT have appropriate accounting procedures to know their numbers. It has always been critical to know your numbers, but it has never been more critical than it is now to “know your numbers.”
Follow the following recommendations, and your chances of survival will increase:
- Get proper accounting in place – we suggest Quickbooks to our customers as it will integrate with most banks and POS systems.
- Refine your menu and prices using your numbers to create profits
- Leverage technology
- Leverage online ordering
- Perfect delivery – whether you provide delivery or use a third-party service provider – perfect it
- Reduce the cost of overhead using “your numbers” to balance the budget and refine the pricing
Based on our experience, small privately-owned restaurants are terrible at back-office work like accounting, payroll, taxes, etc. However, times have changed. The business is changing whether you believe it or not. More than likely, the pandemic will not be over anytime soon.
Changes have to be made to reflect the “new norm” as they pitch. New strains are surfacing daily, each more contagious than the previous strains. Change or die. It’s the survival of the fittest. Even delaying a few days can increase your chances of failure.
Wikipedia page – Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food industry
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