The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Eateries reenvision dining for COVID-19
Restaurants have always been fonts of creativity, though the whimsical efforts of chefs and restaurateurs have typically been directed at diners’ plates, or maybe at decor and ambiance, all meant to dazzle or comfort.
Now, restaurants around the globe are employing that creativity to comply with distancing and other measures meant to help keep diners safe from the coronavirus while maintaining some of the elements of the restaurant experience that people crave.
Restaurateurs are taking innovative steps, big and small, with the goal of injecting a little bit of normalcy in a decidedly not-normal time.
At the three-Michelin-starred Inn at Little Washington, the restaurant might use mannequins wearing vintage costumes to fill seats left empty by Virginia’s rules mandating that restaurants operate at half capacity. Some on social media found the prospect of dining among inanimate companions … well, a tad creepy.
A restaurant in Sydney is trying something similar, albeit in two dimensions. Five Dock Dining is reportedly propping up lifesize cardboard cutouts of good-looking patrons to make the few (reallife) diners feel part of a crowd while restaurants are permitted 10 or fewer patrons. The restaurant also plans to play guest “chatter” on the speakers.
Many other restaurateurs are looking outside the box — or at least outside their doors, converting outdoor spaces into dining areas to accommodate various dictates that they reduce capacity and maintain distance between tables.
David Henkes, a senior principal at research firm Technomic, says diners will soon get used to a very different experience. Sanitation measures will probably be more visible and dining spaces unconventional — but customers, he says, are willing to go along.
“The consumer is accepting of a lot of things you never would have expected,” he says. “We’re seeing a lot of outdoor dining, with restaurants moving into parking lots and loading docks — they’re taking space you never would have imagined dining in six months ago. But, hey, you’re in a restaurant.”
Whether serving diners inside or out, Jon Taffer, a restaurant and hospitality consultant and the host of the Paramount Network show “Bar Rescue,” says restaurants will have to find imaginative ways of meeting the new requirements.
In pre-pandemic days, he notes, “sterile” was a pejorative term in the restaurant world. Now, it might be the highest compliment.
“The problem is that sterile and fun tend to slap each other in the face,” he says. “We have to find ways to infuse energy into half-full dining rooms.”