As Restaurants Reopen, Focus Sharpens on Risk Mitigation

There’s some light showing at the end of the tunnel the coronavirus created.  However, as the U.S. economy phases in its reopening, the nation’s restaurants face the same challenges they faced as it shut down: How do we do this in a way that allows us to minimize risk to our guests, our employees and our business?  

Considering that the risk of the virus still remains very much with us, the answer is: by covering all possible fronts.

Restaurants have easily been the hardest hit of any industry by the pandemic, accounting for 60 percent of March’s job losses, and projections that 20 percent or more could permanently close. There’s a patchwork pattern of partial restaurant reopenings in the states.  This is already well underway in Florida and Georgia, for example, but not expected until late June for Illinois.

Reopening is important. But as San Francisco restaurateur Brandon Jew tells Bon Appetit: “We need to have stricter guidelines… I don’t want to be a guinea pig…