New layout, new experience: Restaurateurs plan reopening
10 June, 2020
Restaurant owners have found new ways to serve customers as they prepare new protocols to make sure safety for when they reopen for the very first time because the COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to shutter, upending income.
The Union Group, which oversees gourmet restaurant Benedict and bakery and bar Union, plans to introduce new safety protocols to be implemented soon if they reopen for dine-in customers.
“We want to discover a system where people that come in for dine-in must check-in with a QR code,” Union Group founder Jennifer Karjadi said during a webinar on June 4. The restaurants would want customers’ cooperation to make it better to conduct tracking when deemed necessary in the name of public safety, she added.
The Union Group’s safety protocol after reopening would focus on sanitation measures, body's temperature checks for both staff employees and customers and reduced seating capacity. It would also integrate contactless protocol through the entire dining experience, from a contactless menu in which customers order from their phones to cashless payments.
“At this time, we are preparing meticulously. In all honesty, we remain not ready because we believe that there are so many new protocols that people have to prepare and carry out,” Jennifer said.
Jakarta is along the way of relaxing large-scale social restrictions (PSBB), with restaurants permitted to operate at under 50 percent capacity under certain health protocols, as stated in a fresh health ministerial decree.
Astrid Suryatenggara, chief marketing officer of MDA Restaurant Group, an establishment that manages several foreign brands, including AB Steak and Animale, said the group was “preparing a fresh layout entering the brand new normal”.
“With us being a lifestyle restaurant, we need to change our business design. We want to adapt,” Astrid said.
AB Steak’s delivery, take-out and home services would continue to be offered even while their stores resumed dine-in services. But to remain true to its steakhouse dining experience, AB Steak is currently supplying a private dining service where the AB Steak team serves its signature steak at customers’ homes.
Restaurant and bar Animale has launched a particular take-out menu and ready-to-cook service, Animale To Go, to adapt to the changing consumer preference for homemade meals.
“So far, we've been surviving by cutting costs left and right and finding other income streams so that we are able to keep our employees,” Astrid said.
MDA Restaurant and the Union Group opened their online stores on Tokopedia to adjust to the rising trend of deliveries.
Jennifer of Union Group said the company was still trying to modify to delivery-based services as Union was more accustomed to serving dine-in customers, but the shift was necessary to prevent any layoffs of its 1,200 employees.
“We want to keep them by carrying out those measures,” she said. “Since the PSBB, we've been pursuing a whole lot of new approaches that people had never tried.”
Apart from the 20 percent discount because of its food items and free delivery for orders of at least Rp 350,000 (US$24.70), the Union Group’s bars, Cork&Screw, Roma and Union, are offering their signature cocktails in bottles, together with vacuum-packed cocktails that customers could make on their own after delivery.
Jeo Sasanto, operations and marketing director at PT Sarimelati Kencana, which operates the Pizza Hut brand, said the existing situation had forced the company to innovate to survive, saying that “new ideas that were unthought-of emerged”.
The restaurant now has pick-up points where customers can grab their orders after ordering from its app.
“We are very fortunate because we have been doing delivery for some time. With the current conditions, what we are doing is strengthening [our service],” Joe noted in the same webinar.
Pizza Hut, a pizzeria with over 500 outlets in Indonesia, has had its delivery brand, Pizza Hut Delivery, better known as PHD, since 2007.
The idea of grab-and-go has already been ingrained within the business enterprise style of Let’s Go Chicken, a fried chicken restaurant, the company still saw sales across over 200 of its outlets drop through the pandemic.
Wika Saputra, founder and chief executive officer of PT Inspirasi Kuliner Indonesia, a company that oversees the brand, said its shops' earnings declined by around thirty percent in March before dropping further during Ramadan consequently of customers’ dwindling purchasing power.
“We are pushing our delivery service. We developed our own independent delivery where customers can place their orders through our WhatsApp service,” Wika said, explaining that the brand now offered ready-to-eat frozen seasoned chicken that customers needed and then reheat.
Consumer spending, which makes up about practically 60 percent of Indonesia’s GDP, is likely to contract this season to its lowest level in decades, economists predict. Consumer confidence nosedived to a 12-year low, according to a Bank Indonesia consumer confidence index survey in April.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com
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