Abstract:
COVID-19 has not only been a devastating public health crisis, but has also
been the restaurant industry’s greatest challenge to date. The present study
attempts to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the restaurant industry and
restaurant innovations. The study considers new products, services and
methods used in the restaurant operation in order to secure its customers and
employees involved in the business. The researcher followed the qualitative
research approach for the thesis due to a lack of appropriate variables. The
semi-structured interview method was selected to collect data from a
convenient sample of 13 participants from fine dining restaurants, family
restaurants, food courts and casual dining restaurants. The thematic analysis
technique was used to analyze the primary data.The key purpose of this study is
to identify the changes that have been made in restaurants,especially during the
COVID-19 outbreak. The findings indicate that there are excellent innovations
that will help to develop the restaurant industry in Sri Lanka. Menu
innovation, new services, changes in management decision making, new
technologies introduced to restaurants, the legal background of the changes
during the pandemic periodand inconveniences faced after changes were made
to the general operation were thoroughly discussed in the content. The findings
identified QR codes, usage of sanitary methods, high discounts, splitting
employees into groups, ghost kitchen, online ordering systems and usage of
traditional ingredients for the menu as major innovations which were
implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. The overall research concluded
that there is a strong impact from COVID-19 on changes in restaurant
operations and innovations. The new technology and concepts which are
adopted will be helpful for restaurants to operate with higher safety and quality
standards. Furthermore, researcher recommend that customers should be
motivated to adopt innovative changes. Employers should develop new
products and new concepts and increase customer and employee collaboration
towards innovative changes.
