More innovative restaurants beat Covid lockdown blues

More local restaurants are introducing new ideas to help their businesses survive the devastating impact of adjusted level 4 lockdown.

Blos Café in the east of Pretoria is one of the restaurants that have changed the way of doing business in order to ease the impact of lockdown.

“We built a padstal (farm stall) outside the restaurant to make people aware that our business is still operational,” Blos Café event manager Xanie du Toit said.

She said they came up with an idea of increasing their income as level 4 lockdown had a negative effect to their turnover, adding that they were selling, among others, fresh bread, homemade pies, delicious cakes and burgers at the padstal.

Blos Café is not the only local restaurant facing that had to adjust its operations during level 4 but other restaurants including the Grace Sushi Chinese restaurant in Watermeyer Park shopping centre, Forti Too restaurant in Lynnwood Bridge centre and Biccs restaurant in Brooklyn Bridge centre had done the same.

“While Covid-19 restrictions are good news in terms of protecting the nation from the pandemic, it is bad news for our business,” said Nico Khumalo manager of the Grace Sushi Chinese restaurant, formerly known as Good Flavour Chinese restaurant.

Under the latest lockdown regulations, restaurants and other eateries are only permitted to sell takeaways or meals for delivery.

Khumalo said the current environment demanded restaurants to come up with innovative ways to generate income.

As a result, they introduced a buy-one-get-one-free model to help people save money when buying sushi while also keeping the restaurant sustainable.

Earlier, Rekord reported that the owner of three popular restaurants in Pretoria, Forti Mazzone, has come up with innovative ideas to help his businesses generate income during this lockdown.

Mazzone owns Forti Too restaurant in Lynnwood Bridge centre, Forti Grill and Bar restaurant in Menlyn Maine and Biccs restaurant in Brooklyn Bridge centre,

He said his secret to success was to come up with innovative techniques to meet the changing needs of his customers as a result of Covid-19 restrictions.

He successfully meets 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, and are either delivered to customers’ home for free or handed over to them in 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 an 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.

However, 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 with 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.

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 e-mail to cornevz@rekord.co.za

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