Cleanliness in the Restaurant: Reality and Perception

Just because dine-in business is on hold doesn’t mean your restaurant’s future has to be. Now is the time to get ahead and make sure you are equipped to adequately address what customers will likely be worried about most: restaurant cleanliness and sanitation.

Although celebrity figures like “Bar Rescue” host Jon Taffer recently told “Fox & Friends” viewers that his biggest worry for restaurants is “the premise of spacing continuing into the retail environment,” there’s going to be more that operators will need to evaluate.

We agree that “people aren’t going to want to sit shoulder to shoulder" at first, and that “they are still going to be cautious and want some spacing.” However, we expect the initial reduction in seating capacity to be closer to 25-30 percent, not 50 percent. This period will likely last four-to-six weeks, and we expect the seating reduction to create table spacing of approximately 9’-0” on center (from the typical 6’-0” on…