Stats Of The Week
The State Of The Industry
According to a National Restaurant Association survey, 75% of restaurant operators don’t expect to turn a profit within the next six months. With dine-in operations resuming across the country, the survey asked why some operators are not reopening dining rooms if allowed. 66% of respondents that continue to offer take out and delivery said it is too soon to reopen dining rooms, citing health as their main concern. About 34% of those same operators responded that there are not enough customers opting to dine-in to justify fully reopening. The restaurant industry lost $40 billion in May with the total economic losses due to the COVID-19 crisis coming to $120 billion, according to a report released by the NRA.
RW Poll Results
This week we asked our Restaurantware followers how they were feeling about restaurants reopening across the nation. When asked if respondents would rather dine-in or order take out from a restaurant, 72% voted for take out while 28% chose dine in. 79% of respondents said that a restaurant’s social distancing and sanitation guidelines are a major influence when deciding where to eat. Even though many restaurants are allowed to open dining rooms, 74% of respondents said they haven’t eaten at a restaurant since restrictions were lifted. 85% of our followers said they felt more comfortable dining outside rather than inside an establishment.
What’s Trending
Coronavirus Spike Puts A Pause On Reopening
As positive COVID-19 cases have risen in the past week, states are weighing the health risks of continuing gradual reopenings. Utah and Oregon have put any further reopening of their economies on hold while Texas, Arkansas, and Arizona continue to move forward despite major spikes in those states. Experts are crediting the rise in cases due to the gradual reopening of businesses over the past few weeks. Texas seems to have been hit the hardest after reaching highs this week for hospitalizations and new coronavirus cases. Meanwhile, the state continued on with their next reopening phase and allowed restaurants to expand in-person dining from 50% to 75%.
Houston’s top county official, Lina Hidalgo, told the Boston Globe, “we may be approaching the precipice of a disaster.”
NY Governor Plans To Punish Restaurant Violators
As New York City remains in Phase 1 of reopening, where restaurants can only offer food for pickup or delivery, some restaurants have chosen to take their chances and begin offering outdoor dining services along with cities within the state that are legally allowed to. In one of NY Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily press briefings, he addressed the illegal increase in outdoor dining and a lack of social distancing across NYC. He threatened to punish restaurants that violate the law by revoking their liquor license. Cuomo tweeted that he has received 25,000 complaints of reopening violations and urged the local government to enforce the law. NYC plans to enter Phase 2 in July, which will allow limited capacity dine-in and outdoor dining, but with recent reopening violations, plans for Phase 2 may be postponed.
Food Halls Make A Comeback During COVID-19
At first, you may think food halls would be the last dining destination customers would go to given their multi-concept operations in close proximity of one another and communal tables, but Time Out Market has created a plan to make their food halls social distancing-friendly. Didier Souillat, CEO of the six Time Out Markets worldwide, has kept its Lisbon, Montreal, Chicago, Boston, Miami, and New York locations closed since mid-March. Souillat has laid out a new customer experience to allow customers to dine at their favorite food halls while maintaining social distancing and sanitation guidelines.
When Time Out Markets reopen, customers will be greeted by an ambassador at the door to explain the new health and safety rules and procedures. Complete instructions about social distancing, ordering, and sanitation will be listed in the food hall’s lobby and cleaning crews will be visible in yellow vests. During the shutdown, Time Out developed a new app that allows customers to preorder their food, come in, and immediately sit down and wait for their food to be served to them instead of going up to the vendor’s stalls. Their long communal tables will be placed six feet apart with color glass partitions between parties.
“Since Time Out is a media company, we are inscribing the partitions with information about what’s happening in the cities where we’re located. We are beating the fear factor and replacing it with a fun factor,” Souillat said to Restaurant Business.
New Chain Locations Open During The Pandemic
As restaurants around the country begin to reopen, some chains have opened new restaurant locations. Restaurant chains are capitalizing on the increased real estate market along with customers’ increased anticipation to leave their homes and dine out. These locations must still enforce social distancing guidelines in accordance with the CDC, but it seems they’ve all opened in states with light restrictions, like Texas and Arizona. El Pollo Loco opened a new unit in Arizona, Sweetgreen is expanding business with its first location in Colorado, Fatburger is also opening its first location in Texas, and many other chains are following suit.
Uber Eats Creates A Restaurant Loyalty Program
Uber Eats has recently added a new feature where restaurants can provide loyalty rewards through the Uber
Eats app. This program is aimed to build relationships between restaurants and consumers without Uber
taking credit for the rewards restaurants choose to offer. Restaurants can choose to participate in the
program with no upfront cost. The only cost to restaurants is when a customer redeems their reward.
Adding a loyalty program is another way Uber Eats is trying to differentiate itself from other food
delivery apps. This program can particularly benefit independent restaurants that don’t have the same
infrastructure as chain restaurants.
Image credit: gillianvann - stock.adobe.com
Bright Spots In A COVID-19 World
Local Restaurant Gives Free Meals To Children
In St. Pete, FL, Eric Atwater, owner of Atwater's Best BBQ & Soul Food, is a very hands-on owner that is always ready to serve customers. Once the COVD-19 pandemic started to affect his local community, Atwater began offering free meals for children. He has ‘kids eat for free’ spray-painted on a sign outside of his restaurant where he passes out prepared meals to families. The idea came to him when kids were told they would not be returning to school due to COVID-19 and therefore missing out on free meals from schools.
“Honestly I was going to retire this year, but because of corona and all the hype, I stayed to feed the people," Atwater said to Bay News.
Cafe Receives Anonymous Donation To Stay Open
When Bill’s Cafe in Naples, FL was forced to close due to stay-at-home orders, one of its regular customers took the owner, Bill Salley, aside and gave him two envelopes. The customer gave Salley an envelope for himself and one for his staff. The donor asked Salley if he would be willing to make 100 sandwiches a day for the Naples Community Hospital across the street. Salley took him up on the offer and delivered food to healthcare workers every day for free. The anonymous customer distributed the donations over the course of a few weeks with the total donations coming to $40,000.
Quote Of Hope
“Whether it’s World Central Kitchen, City Harvest, Daniel Boulud, all these leading chefs have been the first people on the front line saying, ‘What can I do? How can I give back into my community at this time?’ And that’s why we love restaurants. That’s why we love restauranteurs and chefs, because they actually bring us together.” - Charles Gibb, CEO of Fever Tree
