The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as “ObamaCare,” contains some provisions that affect restaurant owners. Reaching further than elementary health codes like requiring your chef to wear a disposable chef's toque, the new requirements relate to nutritional transparency and employee health insurance. The act primarily touches food service establishments comprising more than twenty locations of the same business name. These eateries must provide restaurant nutrition facts such as calorie counts in writing and on a menu display. Many restaurant owners will also need to provide basic health coverage within a particular price range to their employees. A digital menu offers support for the first requirement, and the National Restaurant Association can help with the second.

Restaurant Nutrition Facts and Menu Display

Keeping nutritional information readily available while ensuring that it remains perfectly current and precise may seem intimidating. This is where a digital menu display becomes invaluable. Although restaurant owners also will need to supply written material describing the nutritional content of menu items, a digital menu naturally facilitates menu display updates. Some versions even allow for online modifications whenever prices, menu offerings, or restaurant nutrition facts change. A digital menu also provides benefits concerning advertising. If your restaurant serves more healthful fare than the competition, this fact will become more readily apparent as a result of the Act. The digital menu display gives distinct exposure to this edge. Pictures are prime marketing material as well. Take full advantage of your commercial kitchen equipment to make impeccable samples of menu items to photograph. Use care when selecting which images of your products to display and customers will be drawn more than ever to your most impressive dishes. You can also select from a variety of color combinations to suit your clientele and restaurant’s theme.

Employee Health Plan Requirements

Another issue concerning restaurant owners in regard to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is that of employee health plans. If a restaurant employs at least fifty full-time-equivalent employees, the business must offer affordable basic coverage for full-time employees and their dependents. For the purposes of the Act, full time is defined as an average of at least thirty hours per week during the month. To ascertain the number of full-time-equivalent employees your business employs, divide your part-time employees’ total monthly hours by 120 to determine equivalency based on a thirty-hour work week. United Healthcare and the National Restaurant Association have joined their efforts to reduce restaurant owners’ burdens by presenting various plans to fit a wide range of company sizes. Visit them at www.restauranthealthcare.org and you can explore available options and even consult an advisor.

New government regulations tend to seem overwhelming, but they can be helpful to you as well. Marketing your selections through the use of a state-of-the-art digital menu attracts customers. Knowing that your employees will have health insurance within their price range provides you with peace of mind. Healthier staff members mean fewer short-staff emergencies and a happier atmosphere in general. With the proper research and business savvy, you can turn compliance into opportunity.

Filed under: How-To • General • Food Quality

Tags: digital menu, kitchen equipment, menu display, restaurant nutrition facts, toque