Restaurant Disaster Preparedness: How to keep everything safe
One of the bitter truths of operating a business is that you’re at the mercy of the wider world and its whims, whether they’re economics or public opinion. Nothing drives this home like a disaster. Whether it's natural, like a hurricane, or a human-made incident, such as a kitchen fire, having a comprehensive disaster preparedness plan in place is essential for ensuring the safety of your staff, customers, and property. In this blog, we'll explore the importance of restaurant disaster preparedness and provide practical tips on how to keep everything safe in the face of adversity.
Restaurant Disaster Statistics
Plenty of businesses have learned the hard way about the importance of establishing safety and disaster management protocols after the fact, but you don’t have to be one of them. A little forward planning can save you a lot of trouble down the line.
According to FEMA, roughly 25% of businesses don’t reopen after a disaster. Creating the necessary disaster management policies can save your business from going under should the unexpected strike.
This is arguably more important in food service than in other businesses, given thin margins and perishable goods, so let’s discuss restaurant disaster preparedness.
Step 1: Assess Your Business and Likely Disasters
Before disaster management policies can be drafted, you need to examine your business’s specific vulnerabilities.
Restaurants need particular continuity plans for power outages and disruptions in the water supply since they directly impact your ability to preserve inventory and serve food safely to the public.
Next, you need to consider all the types of disasters that are possible in your operating area and create a plan for each, keeping in mind that different precipitating events can complicate things in different ways.
Don’t narrow your thinking to natural disasters. Consider a variety of unexpected disruptions, including:
- Kitchen/building fire
- Earthquake
- Flood
- Severe winter storm
- Hurricane, tornado, and/or high wind
- Wildfire
- Boil water notice
- Power grid failure / extended outage
- Plumbing failure
- Cybersecurity threat
For each disaster, don't just focus on the direct impact on your building and staff. Also, consider potential impacts to power, water, gas, transportation, internet, phone lines, and other infrastructure you take for granted in the day-to-day.
Connecting with those who have been in the business longer than you can help in providing insight. Use their experience to be prepared for any and all kinds of disasters.
Step 2: Protect Valuable Assets
Once you’ve narrowed down the types of disasters you need to prepare for, you need to secure preparedness and prevention plans for each of them.
This includes a plan for protecting valuable business assets in each scenario.
First, review your insurance coverage. Keep in mind that certain recommendations or requirements, like flood risk, are based on historical precedent and do not necessarily account for the increased frequency and severity of disasters we’re already seeing due to global warming.
Stock supplies that you’ll need to protect your business in the most likely disasters, especially if they can occur without any warning whatsoever. Prices will skyrocket before and during a crisis. This includes anything to secure windows, protect piping, raise appliances out of potential floodwater, and preserve food during an outage.
These days, electronic assets are just as critical to the life of your business as appliances, but they’re easy to overlook during preparation. Make a plan to protect data like employee records, payrolls, transactional information, customer information, insurance, and other business documents.
Back up local electronic copies to the cloud or on an external drive on a daily basis. Have a plan for securing and protecting physical documents. This can include backup copies stored off-site.
You should also have a plan for protecting any surveillance data during a disaster. You may need evidence in the aftermath of the cause of certain damages.
Finally, people are assets, too! Have well-stocked first aid kits in key locations.
Step 3: Get Up and Running Pronto
As if it’s not enough for your business to suffer through a disaster, every day that you are not operational afterward will be a missed day of revenue. Getting up and running quickly will help your business minimize the damage incurred and help you recover.
Know the first steps for insurance claims and how to handle securing the resources for critical repairs. Consider the minimum conditions necessary to operate and have a plan for restoring those first.
Consider your options if infrastructure remains affected for an extended period of time. Can you operate with generators? How will you accept payments? How will you handle food sanitation and employee hygiene if there’s no running water?
It’s important that customers are aware that you are open or intend to get up and running as soon as possible. Keep them engaged and updated through social media, have clear signage out front, and consider contacting local news sources.
Step 4: Drill Employees on the Plan
Disaster management is carried out by the people you employ. If they’re not prepared for how to respond during a disaster, then all your work drafting disaster management protocols is merely an exercise in vanity.
If a disaster strikes during business hours, proper training will ensure that employees keep a cool head and manage customers who will likely be as panicked and less prepared. Eliminating potential hazards and securing everyone’s safety must be a priority in the immediate aftermath.
An effective way to ensure this is to conduct drills with mockup customers. This will put employees right at the scene. Evaluate their performance and provide feedback accordingly.
Employees also need training on the next steps after the immediate danger has passed, but these don’t need to be second nature. Given the stress they’ll be under, the smartest plan is to have well-organized physical copies of your disaster management protocols that they can reference. Everyone should know where to find them and how to use them.
Steps like protecting assets, coordinating with first responders, and keeping in contact with vendors and customers can be complicated and situation-dependent. Your staff will need clearheaded and comprehensive guidance in the form of checklists and detailed instructions.
Prepare for Disasters & Daily Life
The important thing to know about disasters is that they are not in our control. The best bet against it is extensive preparation.
Luckily, the daily natural hazards of restaurant management, like food spoilage and sick employees, can be managed and controlled by strong food safety principles and protocols.
We offer Food Safety Manager certification to familiarize you with food safety practices and help you develop and enforce protocols for your business. Our course is accredited by the ANSI National Accreditation Board and Conference of Food Protection (ANAB-CFP).
You can work through the curriculum online and at your own pace, then take your certification course when and where you choose with on-demand proctoring.
