 Nothing can spoil a guest’s appetite like being served by an employee who is clearly under the weather. On the flip side, providing an environment that feels safe to guests makes a positive statement about your hospitality. Now that we’re in the season where viruses are common – and guests are especially eager to stay healthy for festive occasions around the holidays – review your health protocols with staff. Monitor employees for signs of illness, reiterate your policy about when it’s necessary to stay home, and consider encouraging employees to stay up-to-date with flu and COVID vaccines. Since a clearer policy about staff health may result in more absences, identify potential back-up supports that may help you keep up with traffic – from retooling staff scheduling, to using more speed-scratch ingredients that make preparation easier.
 Falling objects are among the biggest workplace hazards, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. By taking time to organize and store the items in your inventory appropriately, you can minimize safety hazards and also help ensure you don’t use a newer ingredient when an older one is already on the shelf. To minimize injury to staff, store heavy items on bottom shelves, lightest-weight items up top, and your most frequently used items in the middle where they can be accessed (and carried) most easily and without causing strain.
 ‘Tis the season for heavier meals – and for many people, holiday celebrations involve having a ham, roast, turkey or other animal protein at the center of the table. If you’re offering proteins that you don’t normally feature on the menu, it’s a good time to talk with your kitchen team to review how to store these items safely during refrigeration, how to handle them safely during preparation, and steps to take to avoid cross-contamination of ingredients. You might also review the internal temperatures that various proteins need to reach for safe consumption, as well as how long various proteins can be left out before entering the temperature danger zone.
 The festivity and stress of the holiday season can result in greater consumption of alcohol by your guests – even among those who normally abstain. It may be helpful to review your state’s alcohol liability with your staff. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 30 states have laws allowing restaurants, bars, and other businesses to be held liable for selling or serving alcohol to people who cause injury or death because of their intoxication. It’s important to have your staff check IDs and to train workers about how to respond when customers are clearly intoxicated.
 Food safety can sometimes feel like a thankless task – guests are more likely to speak up about a poor food safety experience than a great one. But that isn’t always the case. (And sharing some strong examples of food safety may help others in the business.) Earlier this year, the food safety consultancy Steritech recognized Chipotle with the 2023 Excellence in Food Safety Award – with MOD Pizza and Five Guys earning honorable mentions. Specifically, Chipotle stood out for its multi-tiered approach to food safety. That includes a focus on each link of the supply chain, from how their food is raised through every employee level to ensure safe handling and preparation. Internally, the restaurant has a Food Safety Advisory Council, a dedicated food safety section on its website and the brand invests in local and small business suppliers to help meet its food safety standards.
 Data from Travelers insurance company found that first-year employees are at greatest risk of workplace injuries – and the restaurant industry generates the most insurance claims from first-year employees than any other industry. The research indicates that more than half of restaurant claims involved their newest workers and represented 47 percent of total claim costs. The most common causes of these injuries were overexertion, along with slips, trips and falls. With that in mind, how might you enhance your training to help new staff avoid these hazards? Showing your team how to avoid injuries that result from simple overexertion can be an easy win. Do your newest team members know how to safely carry and move loads of any size, as well as how to move through the restaurant in ways that don’t cause unnecessary strain and can lead to injury?
 Improve your fire safety
Research from the National Fire Protection Association found that U.S. fire departments respond to an average of 20 fires per day at restaurants and bars. Fire hazards can increase if your equipment isn’t sufficiently cleaned and maintained – tasks that can slip through the cracks when a restaurant is short-staffed. Make sure fire safety procedures are part of your staff training, so your employees know where to find fire extinguishers, how to keep their work areas clean and free from fire hazards, what ingredients and cooking methods pose the greatest risks, and how to safely exit the premises in case of fire. Conduct regular inspections of your gas and electrical power supplies, and ensure your fire alarms and sprinklers are in working order.  Considering that an estimated 33 million Americans have food allergies – including one in 13 children under age 18 – it would be understandable for a restaurant to shy away from serving allergic guests. But there are some restaurant operators doing the opposite and seeing real opportunity in being a trusted source of food. Dominic Jones, CEO of JPRestaurants, is among them – and it started when his child was diagnosed with a peanut allergy, according to a recent article from New Food Magazine. In the years since, his restaurant has shifted from warning allergy sufferers to welcoming them, increased the transparency of their supply chain, developed a dedicated allergy menu that eliminates the major allergens, and launched ongoing efforts to make their supply chain, recipes and front- and back-of-house processes safer for guests with allergies. (They share these efforts in a Food Allergy Approach page on their restaurant’s website.) Jones says these actions have generated revenue growth and increased guest loyalty, in addition to improving their food quality overall.
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