Innovative restaurants beat Covid lockdown blues

Some restaurants seem to have adjusted their business models to ease the devastating impact of adjusted level 4 Covid-19 lockdown to their businesses. This after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced early this week, the country’s move to adjusted level 4 lockdown, amid a rising number of Covid-19 infections dominated by the more transmissible Delta variant. In the televised address, Ramaphosa said: “Restaurants and other eateries will only be permitted to sell food for take-away or delivery,” citing that this was necessary as it was impossible for patrons to wear masks while eating or drinking in these establishments. Grace Sushi Chinese restaurant, formerly known as Good Flavour Chinese restaurant, said while Covid-19 restrictions were good news in terms of protecting the nation from the pandemic, it was bad news to the business. Chines restaurant manager Nico Khumalo said the current environment demanded restaurants to come up with innovative ways of alleviating the negative impact the lockdown was having on their businesses, which saw them struggle to generate income.

As a result, they introduced a buy one get one free to help people save money buying high quality sushi and, on the other hand, keeping the restaurant sustainable. “A customer who buys one sushi meal gets one more for free,” Khumalo said, adding that based on the fact that more people were unemployed and had less money to spend owing to the poor economy, worsened by the Covid-19 effect, people wanted to buy products that had value for money. The owner of three popular restaurants in Pretoria, Forti Mazzone, has come up with innovative ideas to help his businesses generate income during adjusted level 4 lockdown.

Mazzone, who owns Forti Too restaurant in Lynnwood Bridge Centre, Forti Grill and Bar restaurant in Menlyn Maine and Biccs restaurant in Brooklyn Bridge Centre, said his secret for success was to come up with innovative techniques to meet the changing needs of his customers as a result of Covid-19 restrictions.

He said lockdown restrictions encouraged him to adjust his way of doing business in order to meet newly identified needs and sustain his businesses. He successfully met the needs of his clients by creating high quality, healthy and affordable family meals. “The meals, named ‘family lockdown specials’ – include meals for six people, four and two, are either delivered to customers’ home for free or handed over to them at the parking lot,” Mazzone said. “Our food is similar to that our clients get when they eat inside the restaurant and it is cost effective.” According to Mazzone, buying unprepared food from a supermarket and preparing it yourself was more expensive than buying already prepared, healthy meal from his restaurants. One of his restaurants, Forti Grill and Bar had to temporarily close since it was situated at the currently closed casino in Menlyn Maine but coming up with innovative ways of doing business has helped Mazzone to operate profitably during lockdown. “The response has been phenomenal, as we have been doing between R18 000 and R30 000 a day on takeaways.” He said although it was not his normal turnover, it was enough to pay his staff members, all his expenses and save some money for the businesses. Mazzone said he was mostly proud of paying full salaries to all his staff members during lockdown because he viewed them as a capital to his businesses since “their worth increases every day.”

He said looking after his staff members made more experienced staff members stay longer in the business and helped it succeed. “Some employees have over 30 years of service with the business and other are between 15 and 25 years.” He said Covid-19 offered him an opportunity to support his staff members when they needed help, adding that if the business was not doing well, he would rather borrow money from the bank to pay his staff members than cut their salaries because he knew that the situation would be better one day. “My employees have put me where I am today, and today is my chance to return the favour.” What innovative ways are you looking at, to ensure that your business is surviving? We would love to hear from you. Please send a detailed email to cornevz@rekord.co.za Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114. For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram