Helping cafés and restaurants keep communities COVID Safe

Helping cafés and restaurants keep communities COVID Safe

Published on 30 July 2020

Councils are a key engagement point with cafés and restaurants to help keep the community safe by helping staff and business owners understand their COVID Safe obligations under the Public Health Order.

In partnership with NSW Health and the Food Authority, the Office of Local Government (OLG) is asking all councils across the State to work with their cafés and restaurants and use the Food Authority checklist to ensure that businesses are complying with COVID Safe requirements.

For convenience, OLG is also collecting the checklist data on behalf of the Food Authority. Council officers including Environmental Health Officers can use this link to record the outcomes of each visit they make to a restaurant or café in their Local Government Area and OLG will pass on aggregated data to the Food Authority.

For ease of access the above link will work on mobile phones and tablets as well as computers, allowing the Environmental Health Officer to complete the checklist on the spot if required.

The COVID Safe Plan page relating to restaurants and cafés can be found here. This Safety Plan is now available in Arabic and Vietnamese.

Safety Plans for beauty and massage parlours have also been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese.

Safety Plans translated into other community languages are being prepared and will be available shortly.

Other supporting materials relating to restaurants and cafés can be found on the OLG COVID-19 Information and Resources page, and the Food Partnership Portal.

Councils can continue to help their small businesses and communities remain COVID Safe by:

Providing education materials to small businesses through council social media channels, direct engagement with businesses, and local chambers of commerce, and business groups. The materials available include social media content, handouts, social media tiles and draft copy Adding this infographic to email signatures for council staff who regularly engage with small businesses Posting COVID Safe materials to council websites and social media channels, and Promoting the importance of COVID Safe plans and social distancing in all communication with small business and the community. Appropriate social distancing and public hygiene is a community wide responsibility, and everyone has a part to play.

Copy and social media tiles regarding compliance measures for pubs, clubs, cafés, restaurants, and small bars prepared by the Department of Customer Service can be found here.

OLG understands that many councils across NSW have been proactive in these ways and thanks all councils for their support assisting in this critical work.