Pizza Today - January 2021 - 31

t's not enough to wipe down guest
tables with a damp cloth any
more. In the COVID-19 world,
restaurant operators need to clean and
sanitize everything that anyone touches.
Pizzeria owners are establishing protocols and processes to keep employees
and customers safe and keep the eatery
open.
While nontraditional methods
such as UV light and disinfectant fog
machines have gained attention lately,
most operators are using sanitizers they
can buy from their current cleaning
supply vendors. While certain details
about reopening restaurants vary from
state to state, guidance on how to clean
surfaces is pretty consistent, and available from sources such as the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC), the National
Restaurant Association and state restaurant associations.
Here are some best practices for
cleaning restaurants during the coronavirus crisis, and after.
Make a list
Maintaining a list of tasks can help
clarify each staff member's responsibilities. " We start each shift with checklists
to ensure all safety requirements and
COVID-19 procedures are being followed, " says Tony Ciola, third generation restaurateur at Tony C's Coal Fired
Pizza, with two locations in Austin,
Texas.
First, Ciola says, employees complete
a Daily Health Screening Checklist
each day before working. Another
checklist, the COVID-19 Take-Away
Checklist, shows processes and procedures. Managers sign off on each item,
and if one area needs improvement,
the manager notes the corrective action
they took. Among the tasks: high traffic
areas must be cleaned and sanitized
every 20 minutes, and sanitizing supplies and sanitation solutions must be
checked regularly.

Assign tasks
At Tony C's, the checklist provides
specifics about each job function's
cleaning tasks. Bartenders and servers provide single-use condiments and
garnishes to customers upon request, as
there are no condiments on the bar or
table. Bartenders and servers provide
guests with a sanitized pen for credit
card transactions, and after the guest
uses the pen it's placed in a separate
area for sanitizing. Hosts wash their
hands and wear gloves to roll silverware. Servers do not pre-clear tables,
but inform bussers that a table or booth
needs to be cleaned or sanitized. Bussers use different gloves for cleaning and
sanitizing. The menus are disposable, or
guests can scan a QR code to order.
Clean early and often
At The Backspace in Austin, Texas,
an employee that has been with the
eatery for 10 years performs a detailed
deep cleaning of the restaurant before
opening. " He gets here a few hours
before anyone else and follows the
detailed checklist which includes sanitizing all counters, door knobs, chairs,
and tables, " says general manager Tara
Davies. The staffer also sanitizes prep
areas and restrooms, and ensures that
the food-safe sanitizer and other supplies are fully stocked and accessible.
The rest of the staff uses the foodsafe sanitizer on high contact surfaces
after each guest leaves. " We have a
checklist for them to help them ensure
they get all of the surfaces and so our
management team can double check
that it's getting done with our new
expected frequency, " Davies says.
End self-serve
John's Incredible Pizza Company offered all-you-can-eat buffet dining for
23 years, until the pandemic.
" COVID-19 forced us to completely
rethink the way we serve food to our
guests, " says Brad Jashinsky, director
of sales and marketing at the Rancho

Santa Margarita, California-based
chain. " We knew that we had to move
away from being a buffet to be able to
reopen. "
Today customers at John's Incredible
Pizza can order from a smartphone app,
plastic menus, or from a kiosk in-store.
Team members deliver the food to the
table, and they also clean the plastic
menus and table numbers. The host
meters the kiosk line and ensures that a
team member cleans every kiosk before
the next group is directed to it. The chain,
which has locations in California, Nevada
and Oregon, hired additional staff who
are dedicated to bussing and cleaning.
Show and tell
The former Ernie's Bar and Pizza
recently reopened in Denver as Earnest
Hall Pizzeria Birreria Coffeehouse. The
eatery had closed for renovations in
2018, and reopened during the pandemic. Employees sanitize high traffic
areas such as customer pagers, door
knobs, payment devices and the bases
and legs of tables after a guest interaction with the item or every 15 minutes.
" Guest pagers get wiped down before
they are handed out and after they
are dropped off when food is ready, "
says Dan DeVito, director of special
projects for parent company City Street
Investors. " All front of house staff from
general manager on down wear a protective mask, while disinfecting with a
spray bottle and towel. " After the items
are clean, staff display signage noting
that the space has been sanitized and is
ready for guest use.
At Dallas-based Pie Five Pizza, a
subsidiary of Rave Restaurant Group,
Inc., all team members wear masks, and
many of the restaurants have installed
Plexiglas partitions at the register to
minimize person-to-person interaction. " We're stringent about the front of
house cleanliness, " says Aaron Archuleta, director of operations. " We think
it's important for guests to see a clean
restaurant where team members are
constantly cleaning so that they have
the confidence to know that we're also
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Pizza Today - January 2021

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