Bristol restaurateur Larkin Cen on how going all in on delivery has paid off
Speaking on BigHospitality's United We Stand Podcast, the Masterchef finalist and former lawyer says he has moved the whole of his delivery operation to his Jing Xu restaurant on Queens Road.
"It has the largest back of house area. The most important thing at the moment is staff and customer safety," says Cen, who has separated his cooking team into a prep team and a service team in order to reduce staff contact as much as possible.
"In between those shifts we do full clean downs and sanitise everything," he continues. "We also ask delivery drivers and people collecting their food not to come into the restaurant."
Cen is offering a menu of Chinese takeaway classics reimagined, including ho fun noodles with burnt ends, and char siu bao with celeriac remoulade.
"The demand and intensity have been incredible. There was one week where we did one week's worth of trade in a normal restaurant over four days."
"Only it's a bit more intense than that because our deliveries only run three and a half hours each evening. So it's actually one week of trade in about 12 hours."
UnitedWeStand has been created by William Reed hospitality titles BigHospitality, Restaurant magazine and Morning Advertiser and is supported by Britvic, CocaCola European Partners and Unilever Food Solutions.
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