In a recent Coronavirus study, 89% of respondents said they felt safer eating food from a grocery store or at home, rather than in a restaurant.

The report even said:

“Foodservice operators that can offer a responsible and safe solution should do so recognizing their true competition during these times isn’t other restaurants, but rather the consumer’s own home.”

It is obvious that it will be a while until chains are back to business-as-usual (and nobody can even tell what ‘usual’ will be) as the sector begins its recovery from COVID-19 — including re-negotiation of expectations with the restaurant customer.

Chains will be serving much warier and demanding customers, not necessarily as it relates to the price or selection, but in regard to their perception of safety, cleanliness, and overall quality of food and the experience. The events of this pandemic have raised alarm bells not simply within the realm of our personal hygiene and cleanliness standards, but those of our merchants, and their merchants, and their merchants — infact, the whole supply chain.

It’s obvious that real change will be needed — a somewhat extreme example of this can be found on this BBC Video: An innovative solution in Amsterdam is currently being trialled and tested. It hopes it will provide a way to help people adjust from isolation to a degree of social contact.

“Efficiency is going to be the keyword in the industry when we begin to get out of this and will continue to be the keyword for a lengthy amount of time. Restaurant staffs have been decimated by this pandemic, and for the restaurants that remained open doing carry out and delivery, they’ve worked with a small fraction of the staff they normally run with. The longer this continues, the more experience that these restaurants will have with becoming more efficient with prep, execution, to-go packaging, etc., to the point where when we are ready to reopen to the public for dine-in, there will be fewer staff members in both back of house and front of house than before the pandemic.” — Danny Lee, chef and co-owner of Anju, Chiko and Mandu in Washington, DC

To support with this, technology is going to become even more critical. Predictive models need to change to facilitate the changing demand models from a vastly different customer mindset, ordering needs to be flexible to that demand and inventory management needs to be tighter. Those restaurants that have managed to weather the storm will be wary and will need to brace for further disruption.

Looking for help with your chain’s technology — Orderly’s technology encourages responsible environmental and economic sustainability.