How can my restaurant reopen safely?

Even though a growing number of COVID-19 cases are still being reported around the world, governments have thankfully eased the lockdown restrictions on businesses, including restaurants.

However, as it stands, many restaurant owners are debating over what the safest route to reopening (and staying open) is.

If you’re among them and are at odds so as to how you can keep your patrons and employees safe while staying open for a lot longer, then sit back and take a read.

A Practical Solution for COVID-19 Protection in Restaurants

It’s understandable that owing to the economic slowdown, many restaurant owners no longer have the staff strength to spend hours cleaning and wiping down every single surface multiple times – and that too throughout the day.

Since COVID-19 has a notorious reputation for transferring from person to person through respiratory droplets and landing on surfaces – it’s possible that the best way to effectively sanitize your entire restaurant space is by cleansing the air of all bacteria and germs. But this also includes wiping down surfaces from corner to corner.

Luckily, there is a very practical solution which restaurant owners can start taking advantage of today: fogging the atmosphere with a sterile sanitizing spray.

Keeping not only the air but particularly surfaces free of germs has become every restaurant owner’s number one priority – and it’s absolutely vital to protect the safety of both your staff and customers.

A ULV fogging system is a highly effective way of sanitizing large areas with minimal disruption to your day-to-day business activities.

Cutting-edge ULV fogging machine, for example, can quickly dispense a disinfecting solution across the entire room and if you have air conditioners on, then the job can be completed even faster as there would be no need to move the ULV fogger around. With that said, the machine is lightweight and portable, which makes for easy and thorough coverage no matter what part of your restaurant needs to be sanitized.

Having an air-conditioned restaurant makes it even easier to use a ULV fogger as the application can be applied faster and more effectively. Most restaurants today have some form of air conditioning, so all you need to do is place your ULV fogger in just one place and have the air conditioner blast directed at the spray. This lets you very quickly sanitize the whole room, even multiple times a day, depending on peak hour timings.

There’s a big advantage to doing this, as you can simply close the door to your dining area and get on with other things. If you switch you air-con to a medium air circulation setting, it will take just 8-10 minutes (may vary according to room size) for the entire room to get properly sanitized and then you can open the door for a few minutes to let the fog out.

In case you’ve never heard of one – ULV Foggers explained

ULV foggers can prove to be invaluable assistants in your restaurant sanitization efforts. Reopening after weeks or several months means that you will probably not have enough staff members – or even if you do, chances are there’s going to be a shortage of time and energy to manually sanitize and wipe down every surface in your restaurant.

ULV foggers can be loaded up with a disinfectant and diffused throughout all open and closed spaces – the air is sanitized completely as is every surface within your restaurant, which are typically hotspots for a respiratory virus like COVID-19.

The ULV fogger above is actually a portable version of commercial ULV fogging machines, purpose built to allow business owners, including those running restaurants, to quickly, safely and effectively disinfect entire spaces.

A ULV fogger works by spraying a disinfectant solution at room temperature which leaves a fog in the air. As the fog dissipates, it lands on surfaces, including every nook and cranny in your restaurant, which may otherwise be difficult to access through conventional disinfecting and sanitisation methods.

It’s a very lightweight and incredibly easy-to-use disinfecting machine which requires no technical knowledge – giving you complete peace of mind that the atmosphere and surfaces in your entire restaurant have been ridden of all germs, bacteria, viruses and pathogens – within minutes at that!

Today, ULV disinfectant foggers are being used in a variety of public gathering places such as restaurants, hospitals, hotels, gyms, etc. Smart business owners understand that the anti-microbial and disinfectant solutions that these machine spray into the air are a practical, simple and cost-effective way to stop the spread of COVID-19 dead in its tracks and sanitize entire environments.

Benefits of using a ULV Fogger at your restaurant

The injection-based fogging allows the disinfectant solution to penetrate every surface and hard-to-reach location, and can be loaded with either a commercial-level disinfectant or a household disinfectant. This effectively eliminates all traces of germs, bacteria and viruses.

ULV fogging is something that can not only prove to be a fantastic solution for detailed-orienting sanitizing, but it can also be a great way to reassure customers that it is now completely safe to visit your restaurant, feel at ease and enjoy their favourite dishes.

In this new era of sanitization and uncompromising cleanliness, having a dining hall where your customers can clearly see how sterile the environment is can even give you a competitive edge.

Many restaurants now, thankfully, have returned to their old sittings and serving arrangements. As it can get rather messy between sittings, the restaurant staff must clean and wipe down all the tables and chairs. However, according to the new guidelines, a deep clean must be performed. Even while following the standard cleaning procedures, it could take ages to do so.

ULV foggers does away with all these cumbersome worries – suppose you usually have a 6pm daily sitting, which has now been shifted to around 9:30 or 10pm because of cleaning; with the fogger in hand, you require just 30 minutes from start to finish for a deep clean – that’s roughly the time it takes for your staff to come back from breaks. This means there’s no interruption to your daily sitting schedule.

Another major benefit of ULV fogging machines due to which they have become so popular among restaurant, pub, café and bar owners is that they can quickly sterilize hard-to-reach places such as walls and floors – you can use them in-between wipe-downs in order to speed up your cleaning time over the course of the day. Plus, you’ll never have to worry about the repugnant smell of stale air left behind in the wake of the quarantine – something which can be a major turnoff for returning customers and new ones alike.

Best of all though, you can switch functions on your ULV fogging machine – from a disinfectant spray to that of soul-pleasing sweet essential oils, which help in getting rid of odours lingering around in places that haven’t been used in a while .

In Closing – Some General Tips for Restaurant Owners 

How deep and effective the sanitization is depends on the solution you load up in your ULV fogger. Hospitals, for example, use a solution confirming to BS EN 1276 standards in the UK with biocidal approvals, as they must follow the most stringent cleanliness and sanitization requirements. This can be safely used for restaurants as well, as it’s the best solution you can find for fighting bacteria and viruses.

As a restaurant owner, it’s important to safeguard everyone’s health, so a ULV fogger loaded and ready to go with a BS EN 1276 solution will deliver fantastic results every time.

Now – even though ULV foggers are an excellent solution to safely reopen your restaurant and reassure customers, this doesn’t mean that we can safely do away with other social distancing and cleaning practices.

These social distancing and cleaning practices include:

• Spread out your dining tables and waiting room chairs at least 6 feet apart. Now might be a good time to take advantage of unused outdoor space in order to fulfill your guest capacity.
• Light switches, doorknobs and handles are the first touchpoint in your restaurant – so wipe them down every few hours.
• Salt’n’pepper shakers, soda machines, napkin holders, etc. Wipe them down several times throughout the day.
• When cleaning up your tables, remember to wipe down the seats and particularly the arm rests.
• Any places where touchscreens are used by your staff or customers – give them multiple wipe-downs throughout the day.