Guests Focused on Restaurant Procedures that Ensure Safety

It is clear restaurant guest sentiment dropped sharply the moment the health crisis started expanding across the country and dining rooms began shutting down. But what is even more interesting is the themes that emerged from the online social chatter related to restaurants.

During the first phase of the pandemic, from early March to mid-April, consumers started perceiving a real threat for the first time, shelter-in place-orders were enacted and restaurants had to quickly adapt to the new off-premise-only environment. As this happened, guests initially focused more on their fear of getting sick. In early March guests were hyper-vigilant about the cleanliness practices at restaurants and started voicing what their clear expectations where when visiting a restaurant, like additional attention to cleanliness by all staff.

By late March, as restaurants began closing their doors and many employees were either laid-off or furloughed, an emerging theme on social media was a concern for those employees. In early April, the conversation shifted to delivery and off-premise offerings, which was not surprising given that this was the way guests were experiencing restaurants at that point. A recurring theme was guests stating they were trying new restaurant brands through delivery, and in many cases the result was positive. In fact, Black Box Guest Intelligence data showed an early improvement in delivery and off-premise sentiment, particularly in full-service restaurants during this stage.

By late April, restaurant guests had adapted to this “new normal” and the conversation shifted to those innovative initiatives restaurants took to boost their revenue while helping to meet an expanded set of their guests’ needs. Restaurant brands began receiving kudos from their guests for starting to sell grocery staples as part of their menus, as well as adapting their technologies and processes to enhance the off-premise ordering experience.

By early May, some major states started reopening their dining rooms and guests again started being laser-focused on cleanliness and how well restaurants were meeting their standards of social distancing. Many guests also declared a strong sentiment towards what they perceived to be restaurants reopening too soon.

As more and more restaurants opened their doors to dine-in guests one theme stood out, perhaps because of it being related to the most visible of COVID-19 prevention measures. There was a lot of chatter centered around the usage of masks in restaurants, especially worn by staff incorrectly. Guests were quick to call out instances in which masks were not covering the staff members nose, mouth or both. Guests also made it clear that they were checking restaurant websites to find out what their mask policies were beforehand and were vocal about singling out those cases in which those stated policies were not being followed.