A View From The Top

Little Greek COO gives 12 tips on navigating COVID-19

Bryan St.George, COO, Little Greek Fresh Grill discusses how to establish proactive health conditions.

Provided

April 17, 2020

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By Bryan St.George, COO, Little Greek Fresh Grill

With anxiety at an all-time high, how do we keep our employees and customers feeling safe with direct front-line customer exposure? Establishing new health options is not only critical but also essential.

The team you've been able to hold on to needs to be reassured that you are doing everything in your power to keep them safe in the current work environment. What can be done? How do you adhere to current CDC and government guidelines, and perhaps taking a step or two beyond?

Establishing new proactive health conditions is critical as well as vital to your business lifeline. Here are some suggestions for making this happen.

Have your team wear gloves, masks and sanitize any areas that could have human touchpoints. Do this every 30 minutes just to be safe and establish a point person during the shift to take the point on ensuring this is completed.
Employee temperature checks prior to the start of a shift to ensure no fevers are present and if staff members are sick, develop a list of staff who may want extra hours in advance so they will be available if needed.
If any of your team seems to be showing any symptoms that might be COVID-19-related, address immediately. Send them for testing and clean/sanitize their work area.
Insist your team wash their hands frequently. With warm water, have anti-bacterial soap plentiful and available.
Adhere to the suggested 6 feet social distance guideline. Post the distancing guidelines while making sure you mark customer standing pints if they are allowed in the restaurant for pick up. This same step can be used to mark off the standing area for staff in the back of the house. Both employees and customers will appreciate you going the extra mile.
Establish a "grab and go" station. While this may not work for all concepts, if it does for you, this will limit employee-customer contact and hopefully help.
Adopt a curbside touchless pick-up experience. This is actually safer than a drive-thru, as orders are paid in advance (no money exchange), customers can place their make, model and color of car prior to pick-up. Customers call upon arrival and are asked to open their trunk, the orders are placed in the car minimizing the exposure for all parties.
Sanitize. Sanitize. Sanitize. Swab down any counters, drive-thru window areas and other spaces. Use a sanitizer that contains at least 70% alcohol.
Deal with employee anxiety immediately. If you sense any team members feeling panicked, talk it through immediately. Address the concerns as best as you can. Staff will be assured of your leadership the more you stay ahead of this fluid crisis.
You make more sales during this tough time. Promote the service through your local news media outlets, homeowner associations, local restaurant and take out blogs.
Last, but definitely not least, be the cheerleader for your team. Let them know how much you appreciate them going above and beyond the call
Catering menus should include individually packaged meals to allow food to be safely consumed.

At many of our Little Greek Fresh Grill stores, we have established community grocery stores to allow for items like toilet paper, paper towels, ground beef, chicken, latex gloves and many other essential items to be ordered by our customers. People who have other underlying health issues are finding it impossible to purchase some of these items as the items are unavailable online due to sporadic supplies. This has been our chance to impact the community in a positive way while keeping our staff employed.

With some luck, we will all navigate the COVID-19 waters to better days.

Bryan St.George is the COO of Little Greek Fresh Grill. He has spent the last 29 years in the restaurant business both domestically and overseas. Little Greek has 42 locations in six states.

Coronavirus / COVID-19