Will we still go to restaurants after Coronavirus?! How will our habits change ?
With the Coronavirus forcefully entering our lives and the desire to resume our daily routines, it is natural to ask what the future of the restaurant sector will be. Will we still go out to dinner?
We have analyzed several international and Italian studies on the impact of the pandemic on the restaurant industry and especially an interesting article published by Rakuten Ready that questioned a sample of people on the future impact of the Coronavirus on their restaurant outings. We find what emerges to be also applicable to the Italian market according to the data in our possession.
Over 50% of us will change our habits due to the Coronavirus, avoiding restaurants and crowded places, favoring home deliveries or dinners at home, with family, for a period of time that is not well identifiable but which will last a few months.
The statistics outline the somatic features of what will be one of the greatest challenges for the sector in recent history with an estimated drop in Italy of at least 70% in the first half of 2020, equal to over 7 billion euros .
Interior design in the future of catering
It is natural to ask this question to those who make this their profession, but in reality we are touching on a much more important point than one might imagine.
It is clear that it will be essential to review the management of your spaces to remain profitable in business in the coming months and perhaps years, to cope with the rules imposed by social distancing.
Restylit for example, an Italian online interior design startup, in the last 7 weeks of lockdown has experienced a significant increase in traffic to their portals (about 50%) and a multiplication of requests for intervention from more or less structured Italian restaurateurs intent on thinking about how to keep their business profitable in the months to come.
Interior design therefore comes to our aid in this delicate historical context, due to the need of restaurateurs to renovate their premises by expanding the spaces or creating new ones to avoid the loss of seats imposed by social distancing, which will often require at least a new arrangement of the paths and tables, up to the entire layout of the premises.
As for the interiors, it will be necessary to find intelligent solutions by creating niches and using space-saving furniture, or even mezzanines and architectural tricks. Interior design will therefore be essential for the study of every precious centimeter.
But moving towards the warm season, there are many requests received by Restylit to design and furnish outdoor spaces , those spaces where customers will feel safe and to be exploited to 100% of their potential. We will certainly witness a marked shift of activities towards the outside of the premises even more than in the past, during the warm season and not only.
But be careful, these spaces must not be neglected and furnished roughly, it is not a question of conquering it but rather of care and study. They must absolutely represent the soul of the location as much as the characteristic interiors. Even more so if we will have to deal with COVID-19 for a long time, perhaps until autumn, and we want to continue to exploit the outdoor spaces as already happens in many cities around the world (see Paris).
It will be one of the most important missions of restaurants and bars in our country to guarantee an experience that lives up to the past. The location has in fact gradually taken on an ever-increasing importance in the overall evaluation of a place, we absolutely must raise the standards of our dehors, private gardens and outdoor spaces in general.
A curious and encouraging trend for the period is to be highlighted, namely the response of many players in the sector, not only interested in interior design as a pillar of the strategy for the coming months but also for the opening towards online design, "due" to the impossibility of addressing someone in person. A flywheel that could perhaps trigger interesting developments for the sector by bringing many professionals closer to interior design, thanks to the possibility of containing the cost of an intervention with online design.
There will be a pre and post Coronavirus, we understood it immediately, but it is up to us to transform this very difficult challenge into an opportunity as is happening for us and for many other people ready to start again.
And how much does it cost me?
A legitimate and pertinent question in a financially complex moment.
But let's remember a very important concept: investing during crises, those potentially lethal for a business, is always the winning strategy. Of course, you have to invest in the right direction but what has been said so far we believe is particularly pertinent to the historical period.
When talking about an interior design intervention, there are all the opportunities to obtain great results and high-level consultancy without crazy expenses, for example an online interior design company like Restylit, and others, allows you to significantly reduce the average cost of a high-level project depending on the scope of the intervention (from a soft restyling of furniture to a real renovation).
But there's more, for a quick and immediate response Restylit has just created a section within the online shop dedicated to the hospitality sector where you can buy furnishing accessories with the free support of their interior designer, from 9 to 22 and weekends included.
The possibilities are there, the important thing is to start investing now to build the near future.
Some practical tips for a post-Coronavirus restaurant
Among the countless amount of information circulating online and offline, we have summarized the advice that we believe to be the most useful and immediately implementable. Some ideas to immediately focus on to be ready for reopening.
Automate : necessary for as many operations as possible, such as automatic order taking devices at tables, perhaps with built-in chat to ask for information directly to the staff, encouraging contactless payments via card or app as much as possible.
Sanitize : every area of your restaurant but especially tables and chairs at the end of each reservation. Place sanitizing and disinfectant devices at each table so that customers feel safer.
New Service Standards for Staff : define a new code of conduct and service within the venue, ensuring that all staff respect and enforce it. It will be necessary for guests to have the correct living space at all times, the famous social distance, because they will have the right to feel safe and relax with their family or friends in such a stressful period, at least for a few hours.
A new business plan: we know that it will be necessary to distance the tables and this will mean having to manage more shifts and create moments of consumption that did not exist before, for example proposing a Sunday brunch. Marketing and communication will have to follow all this by reinforcing the most important message at every opportunity: the pre-Coronavirus experience will be the same as the post-Coronavirus one in terms of the quality of the food, the drinks and the location; it will simply be lived even more safely!
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