This week on Nation's Restaurant News, we covered restaurants such as McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Dunkin' stepping up coronavirus safety procedures for employees. McDonald’s said it plans to distribute more than 100 million non-medical grade masks to the company’s nearly 14,000 restaurants across the U.S. Chick-fil-A recently installed hand washing stations outside restaurants so employees taking orders at the drive-thru can wash hands more frequently. Dunkin’ said it is “requiring restaurant employees to wear single-use gloves, regardless of the task, and non-medical masks” as part of new safety procedures.
In wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Panera Bread is joining the growing number of restaurant chains selling groceries. “With this new service we can help deliver good food and fresh ingredients from our pantry to yours, helping provide better access to essential items that are increasingly harder to come by,” Panera CEO Niren Chaudhary said in a press release. Items consumers can get via Panera Grocery include avocados, tomatoes, blueberries, greek Yogurt, skim or 2% milk, bread and more.
In the past two weeks, 10 million people in the U.S. have applied for unemployment benefits.In an effort to offer support, hospitality organizations, celebrities and suppliers have launched hundreds of funds to offer some relief. Some of these relief fund include One Fair Wage, Restaurant Opportunity Centers United, Go Tip Em. Click through the gallery to check out the other relief funds on the list, and to see what else was trending on Nation's Restaurant News this week.