Glug - hospitality reservations, orders and payments made easy

by Startacus Admin

The app that's on a mission to make things easier for hospitality businesses and customers alike...

All of a sudden, the world has been thrown into a state of lockdown and social distancing because of COVID-19. The world in the first, tentative steps towards reopening already looks different.

Big shops that we’re used to seeing packed to the walls with shoppers are letting in only a handful of people at a time, and there are stickers all over the floors telling us how far apart to stand from each other. Who knows how long this will continue or how many other changes will come about in the future, but at least for now, things are quite different.

One of the industries that will continue to be hit hardest is hospitality. Restaurants and cafés will need to wall off their tables, bars will struggle to cope with vastly reduced capacity. Businesses in this industry in particular are in need of solutions to maintain low risk while keeping their heads above water.

Within a few months, hospitality focused startups and apps are pivoting to respect this new social distancing norm. 

Manchester-based startup Glug may hold one such answer to keeping things safe while keeping sales up as much as possible. Their platform enables hospitality businesses to maintain social distancing while still taking customer orders quickly. 

The idea is simple: the customer takes a seat, opens up the Glug app to peruse the full menu, and orders straight from their device.

Or they can place their order before even arriving, making it equally useful for something like a bakery as for a bar or café. The staff receives the order, confirms it on their own device, puts together the food and drink, and either serves it to the table as normal or the customer takes it from the counter when it’s ready, eliminating time standing in queues and risking social distancing measures.

The app also means that there is no need for physical payment with cash or cards, further reducing physical contact and risk. The only downside to this is that it can take up to 7 days for payment to be delivered to the business’s account. But the app is free for customer and business, and the amount of customers it has the potential to help you retain may be worth that extra time.

As of June, Glug has raised £250,000 in investment and is launching across the UK as bars, bakeries, cafés, restaurants, and more reopen their doors.

Restaurant and drinks ordering apps on a mission to respect social distancing will be all the rage going forward (and there are a few alongside Glug that have launched regionally) and we look forward to seeing how Glug and over similar apps progress. 

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• #hospitality
• #social distancing
• #customers
• #manchester
• #covid
• #covid-19
• #restaurants

Published on: 5th July 2020