6 Things You Need to Do to Prepare Your Restaurant for Emergencies
If you ask any cooking enthusiast around the world what their dream is, most will tell you it’s to open their own restaurants. Few things can be as exciting as having your own restaurant. Yet, it’s also one of the most daunting business endeavors out there.
Many restaurants open their doors only to fail a few months later and go out of business. It’s a tough industry with a ton of competition, which is why you need to be prepared for anything. One angle that many restaurant owners don’t account for is emergencies, which might be their downfall. These are some things that you need to do to prepare your restaurant for emergencies.
Create a Plan
The first thing that you need to do to prepare your restaurant for emergencies is to create a plan or a checklist. This plan will outline the course of action that the staff will take in case of an emergency and how they should act. While creating such a plan, you should obviously account for both natural and man-made disasters. Hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters should be accounted for, as should fires and robberies. You will also need to account for situations like water or food contamination and what your people should do then.
Get the Necessary Tools
After taking some time to prepare an emergency checklist, you need to start getting the tools or equipment that you will need in such cases. What good is a solid emergency plan if the staff doesn’t have the tools to enforce it? The professionals from performancebasedheatingandair.com/ say that one of the first things that you need to get is a backup generator. If there is a power outage in your restaurant, people can panic unless there is a backup generator to provide enough power at least for an evacuation. Like with power outages, review other emergency possibilities and get any tools that might prove helpful in case the worst happens.
Train Your Staff
Don’t think of emergencies as unlikely situations to happen; that’s not true. A lot of restaurant owners focus on the business side of things and ignore such important preparations, which might actually be the end of the business if you’re not prepared. This is why it is important that you train your staff on how to deal with emergencies in case they happen.
Again, a solid emergency plan is useless unless your staff is trained to follow it. Teach them things like how to handle a fire and use an extinguisher –– it goes without saying that fires are pretty common in restaurants and your staff needs to be extremely well-prepared for that incident.
Insurance
Insurance is how you protect your business from losing thousands of dollars in case of a storm or a hurricane or other natural/man-made disasters. If you don’t have an insurance policy, you could be out of business if an earthquake or fire destroys your restaurant. So, always make sure your insurance papers are in order and that your policies are active. You might think of insurance as too much money, but in the long run and if accidents happen, insurance actually saves you a lot of money.
Managing Communications
A restaurant owner will not always be around, which is why you need to instruct your staff on how to manage communications in case of emergencies. They need to know who to call and how to reach the proper authorities if the situation is dire. This is an important part of your emergency plan, and your people need to understand the communication process and how it should work in case of emergencies.
Inventory
Keeping an inventory of everything in your restaurant is crucial. The same goes for your business records. If a natural disaster or fire destroyed your restaurant, you will need a detailed inventory of everything in the place, including electrical appliances and possibly even food –– at any given moment, the average restaurant has thousands of dollars’ worth of food. All of this will prove quite useful when it is time to make your insurance claim and it will make things go a lot smoother.
Preparation can help you avoid catastrophic consequences with your restaurant after an emergency. You might not think it would happen to you, but it could, which is why you need to be ready. Train your people and get them the necessary tools to handle any emergency, from flashlights and generators to medical kits. That way, you ensure that your restaurant can survive any emergency and keep going strong.
