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David Chang’s Momofuku Group issues coronavirus safety guide for restaurant industry

The detailed document provides procedures for menu development, family meals, tasting and many other tasks

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

June 26, 2020

2 Min Read
Momofuku Las Vegas Exterior - please credit Gabriele Stabile.jpg
Designated areas are to be set aside for tasting both mise en place and finished dishes using single-use spoons.Gabriele Stabile

David Chang’s Momofuku Group has released a comprehensive guide to health and safety procedures at their restaurants during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“We’ve been working on the @momofuku COVID-19 protocol for 4 months,” Chang said in a tweet pinned to his Twitter account. “It’s by no means perfect … [but] I think it’s important we all start to work off the same page, to start a dialogue to help each other out.”

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The SOP Library covers standard operating procedures for activities including handwashing, social distancing for employees and customers, eating and drinking, receiving deliveries, tasting during food prep, developing new menu items and a dozen other topics.

It’s a detailed guide. There are 15 situations when handwashing is required. The section on “starting your shift” includes best practices for commuting and requires a single point of entry into the workplace with the type of disinfecting foot-wash mat normally used at food processing factories.

Guests are required to wear masks and must agree to have their temperature checked with a contactless thermometer. They’ll be asked to leave if their temperature is above 100.4° Fahrenheit. Contactless payment is encouraged, including pre-ordering, pre-paying and using Apple Pay and Google Pay. Cash is to be avoided.

Related:David Chang’s Momofuku group permanently closes two restaurants and will relocate Ssam Bar in face of coronavirus

Designated areas are to be set aside for tasting both mise en place and finished dishes using single-use spoons.

Procedures for developing new menu items include working in designated spaces during off hours and making sure that those items can be prepared safely, and to avoid daily specials.

“Any special should be a dish that has been previously developed and can be executed by one staff member without new training,” according to the procedures.

All of the procedures were developed with the intention of sharing them across the foodservice industry.

“Our goal is to not only implement these procedures into our restaurants to keep our teams and guests safe, but also to make them available and accessible to anyone who might find them useful for their own businesses,” the introduction to the guide says. “While these standard operating procedures will always need to be adapted to each individual restaurant, we hope that they will serve as a good jumping off point for anyone looking to create a handbook of their own.”

The full SOP library can be found here.

For our most up-to-date coverage, visit the coronavirus homepage.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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