Weekend reading: Safety First for Restaurants

The Aspen Institute’s Food & Society initiative, in collaboration with several other groups, has jointly issued a guide for restaurants on how to protect staff and customers from Covid-19.

The new guide includes:

• The Diner Code of Conduct, which lays out expectations for dining indoors.
• The COVID-19 Pledge, which explains the expectations of restaurant operators and workers to create a safe indoor dining environment.
• Ventilation Guidelines, which give restaurants practical, affordable, and accessible help with ventilation systems and best practices.

You can get the whole thing here.

As Corby Kummer, Food & Society’s director, explains,

We’ve fine-tuned Safety First to meet the on-the-ground needs of restaurants as they reopen as quickly, economically, and safely as possible—translating the science of health officials and engineering associations into the day-to-day realities of businesses small and large. That’s what restaurants told us they needed, and health departments told us too.

The guide puts everything in one place: how Covid-19 is transmitted; how to prevent it,; what diners, waiters, cooks, and everyone else in a restaurant should do there and at home; how to deal with restrooms; and how to deal with any number of possible scenarios.

It’s short, easy to read, and amazingly comprehensive and useful.

We all want restaurants to re-open safely.  Here’s how, with thanks to Aspen and its heavy-duty collaborators:

• World Central Kitchen
• The National Restaurant Association
• The James Beard Foundation
• The Independent Restaurant Coalition