In May 2020, the Arizona Restaurant Association launched Welcome Back to the Table, which provides reopening guidance intended to help restaurants.
The program is meant to ensure the utmost safety and health of diners, as well as direct teams on more technical issues such as safely restarting kitchen equipment and staffing. Additionally, it includes guidelines restaurants are expected to follow from the State of Arizona. The recommendations under the program include maintaining social distancing by following restrictions in compliance with CDC guidelines and limiting the number of people in any dining party to no more than 10 at any time.
Technology should also be employed to decrease the number of patrons waiting in or near the establishment. In addition, further sanitation methods should be considered, including finding new ways to handle menus and the order process that moves away from traditional reusable menus, and employing options to decrease menu touch points through technology and other solutions, the release states. These include recommending diners view menus on their phones, placing menu boards throughout the restaurant, offering single-use menus that are to be discarded after every use, or sanitizing easily cleanable (such as fully laminated) menus after each use. Restaurants will also need to sanitize customer areas — including tables/tablecloths, chairs/booth seating, all door handles, any other surfaces a customer has likely touched — after each sitting with EPA-registered disinfectant, the release states.
– The Arizona Restaurant Association reports