[ad_1]
HONG KONG – What started out as doodles on napkins has become a practical guide on how to run a restaurant in a pandemic now referred to by various sectors around the world.
A mixture of common sense and practicality, the 20-page Covid-19 playbook was compiled by the management team of the Hong Kong hotel group Black Sheep Restaurants earlier this year.
“In January, when we heard a kind of murmur of something that was happening in Wuhan, we felt that this was going to reach our doorstep,” said the group’s co-founder, Syed Asim Hussain.
Together with their business partner Christopher Mark and his team, they began putting together an internal set of protocols that will be implemented in the group’s 27 restaurants, one in Shanghai and the rest in Hong Kong.
The manual covers sanitation practices and health protocols, as well as business and guest relations. Advice given includes making hand sanitizers and wipes “absolutely everywhere available”, so staff is “neat and spotless, now more than ever” as guests become more sensitive carelessly, and cut menus and eliminate buffets.
In April, the manual was shared online and went viral – downloaded more than 5,000 times. It is now available in five languages (English, Chinese, Japanese, French and Spanish) and is widely read not only by people in industry in Hong Kong but also by people around the world in governments, academia and industries. travel and fashion.
“It amazes me. We are just dumb restaurant people,” Hussain said, describing the experience as “pretty wild” and “really humbling.”
“We do not pretend to be experts on Covid, we just say that it is something we are doing to protect our people, take care of our guests and that others may find it useful as well.”
While the coronavirus pandemic has taken its toll on world economies, for Hong Kong it is a double whammy due to last year’s unrest.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the Black Sheep group has recorded financial losses for the first time since it was created in 2012 for two consecutive quarters this year.
For seven of the nine months this year, its staff, which numbers more than 1,000, had to accept a pay cut or was forced to take unpaid leave, and the group’s income is “a third of what it should be.”
The silver lining is that the group’s financial success in the first seven years has allowed it to keep going while keeping everyone on the team, something Hussain, 35, says is “my greatest success as a person.”
And while he’s trying to get through week after week now, Hussain, who was born in Hong Kong with Pakistani roots, is optimistic that next year could present plenty of opportunities for entertainment players like him.
“For example, some amazing real estate opportunities. Luxury brands are looking to decrease their footprint in cities like Hong Kong and Singapore, so I think that footprint will be replaced by hotel brands.”
Meanwhile, he urged people to support their favorite restaurants.
“Restaurants, among other things, are cornerstones on which communities and neighborhoods are built and I mean this (not only) for Hong Kong but also for Singapore – restaurants have been part of what made our cities exciting and interesting. “Hussain noted. , who believes that restaurants should be part of Hong Kong’s comeback.
“We are what makes Hong Kong brilliant and if we lose it, of course it is our loss, it is the loss of the industry, but it is also the loss of the city.”
[ad_2]
