Friday the 15th of October marks the end of a prolonged business lockdown in the ACT, and the RUC at Turner are taking the lead, not only welcoming back guests but reopening with a fully vaccinated workforce mandate and as Canberra’s first club to move to a full integrated smart phone food and beverage ordering system.
After nine weeks of quiet kitchens and empty bars, and a stand down of 52 staff, the RUC will welcome back their first patrons at 12pm, signalling the beginning of what will hopefully be a fantastic summer for Canberrans.
Secretary Manager of the RUC, Jeremy Wilcox, says it was an easy decision to mandate vaccinations for his staff, and outlined the responsibility and lead that every hospitality venue should be taking to keep the doors open.
“100% of our staff are now fully vaccinated, so we’ve been doing our part. It was an easy decision when we considered the safety of our community and how we’d all be able to get people back into the Club,” said Jeremy.
“The safety of our patrons has always been our number one priority and we need to set the example that vaccinations should be the most important step we can take to keep Canberra open for business. While we will not be verifying our visitors’ vaccination statuses, we strongly encourage all our members and guests to be fully vaccinated, and to stay home if you’re feeling at all unwell,” Jeremy continued.
Although the RUC is lucky to have a large outdoor area that will be used after October 29, for the next two weeks they will only be opening indoors. These conditions have actually provided a ‘serendipitous’ ease into the launch of Canberra’s first club with a fully integrated smart phone food and beverage ordering system.
“We invested our time during this lockdown to not only renovate our space, but we also managed to fast track the setup of a new smart phone ordering system that is used in a number of Australia’s largest food and beverage venues. We will be the first club in Canberra that will be saying goodbye to long lines at the Bar and the classic Friday night dinner that starts standing in queues waiting to order dinner. Customers can order and pay from their tables using their own phones, you can still shout your mates or start a bar tab, and we’ll deliver it directly to your table.
“In a large venue such as ours with five different areas to sit indoors and outdoors, we had to redesign the way our ordering and service to tables worked, update our computer system and retrain our staff. These improvements are now critical to survival of clubs like ours who need to change the way our members and guests use our facilities and help keep them COVID-19 free.
“We are really looking forward to reopening, our staff are actually buzzing, and we are itching to pull a beer and chat to a few of our members.”
From Friday at 12.00pm, up to 25 visitors will be able to come to the RUC and grab that classic chicken schnitty they have been craving.
“Everyone will be very used to the rules, including checking in, seated service only, limited numbers, masks and social distancing,” said Jeremy. “Luckily, we now offer our guest a mobile ordering service to tap on, order and pay.”