When the novel coronavirus pandemic shut down dining rooms in March, restaurants were forced to get creative on the fly.
Almost immediately they started coming up with strategies to keep customers engaged and serve them safely.
One of those solutions was Pop Tarts.
Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar added a $16 do-it-yourself Pop Tart kit to its takeout and delivery menu. It includes dough, three fillings, frosting, toppings and parchment paper to make a facsimile of the breakfast pastry.
“We started out with essentials, but we quickly realized that there was also going to be a need for some kind of entertainment,” founder Chris Simms said in a phone interview.
Costa Mesa-based Lazy Dog began reopening its dining rooms in Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties this week, and is ready to follow suit in Los Angeles County. But its shutdown strategies remain in place. The same goes for many restaurants that tested such things as selling do-it-yourself kits, groceries, and cocktails to go.
Here are 5 innovations that made a difference.
1. Pop-up groceries
When the shutdown began, restaurants found that they had empty dining rooms, but kitchens and storerooms stocked with things that were disappearing off supermarket shelves, including toilet paper.
As an extra revenue stream and a form of community outreach, they began selling those supplies to the public.
“We sold a ton of market essentials, chicken and milk and eggs and toilet paper. We’ve seen that now that supermarkets are stocking their shelves we’ve seen a little bit of a slowdown,” said Simms.
The service has been particularly helpful to people who are reluctant to go to grocery stores, he said.
Selling groceries provides restaurants with a way to maintain relations with its suppliers, according to tips from the National Restaurant Association, but also taught them to learn about retail taxes. It advised restaurants to make it easier on themselves by selling items in fixed amounts.
2. Family bundles
Fast food restaurants were already pushing family-size meals and catering when the pandemic hit, but full service restaurants such as Denny’s and Cracker Barrel have jumped on board.
Family packs typically feed for or five people and include entree, sides, salad or bread. Breakfast or brunch bundles might include pancakes, eggs and potatoes.
Typical price ranges are $25-$40 or more, and are usually lower than single servings, sometimes much lower.
For example, Panda Express’ family meals include three entrees and two sides. They were introduced at $20, roughly $5 per person, and currently cost $37, still less than $8.90 per person, the starting price of a plate with three entrees and one side.
Lazy Dog has been expanding its “Friends and Family Meals” to include such entrees as fried chicken and barbecued bison meatloaf. Prices are $25-$50.
Simms said they will be on the menu for while.
“We priced them at an incredible value, knowing that people were going to have some hardship.”
“I don’t see those necessarily ending anytime soon.”
3. DIY kits
If family bundles meet a need, there was also a need for entertainment for shelter-at-home families with children, Simms said.
“There’s only so much TikTok a kid can watch.”
Restaurants responded with do-it-yourself kits for such things as Taco Bell tacos and Baskin-Robbins ice cream sundaes.
Kits usually include the essentials, such as taco meat or two quarts of ice cream and customized items such as toppings. When necessary, they include instructions.
Blaze Pizza launched do-it-yourself pizza kits running $8.95-$19.95. They include a dough ball, dusting flour, sauce, and toppings. It has sold 10,000 of them since mid-April, according to Mandy Shaw, chief executive officer of the Pasadena-based chain.
She said in an email the concept was a win in a number of ways.
“First, we moved quickly with our ops and franchise leadership team to recognize that given the COVID landscape, people were not only looking for a quality delivery pizza, but also a way to entertain their family. Our DIY Kit fulfills both those cravings,” she wrote in an email.
“Second, we made it simple for our franchise partners. No new ingredients or packaging needed to be brought in for the DIY Kit and it can be baked at home with regular household equipment.
The kits generated social media posts from users, she said, and the company supplied its own by having co-founder and chief culinary officer Brad Kent conduct cooking classes via Zoom.
In addition to its breakfast pastry kit, Lazy Dog is selling DIY nacho kits for $25.
Kits aren’t just for families. Simms said businesses have been buying them as fun perks for employees.
4. Contactless service
Before the pandemic hit, it was the goal of quick service companies such as Starbucks, Dunkin’ and Chipotle Mexican Grill to speed up service through app purchases and pickup stations before the pandemic hit. Now health considerations are pushing more chains in that direction, including full service chains that are ramping up curbside service.
Curbside service often requires customers to order in advance online or through an app and then phone the restaurant when you arrive in the parking lot.
Panera Bread recently launched a geofencing service that would tell the restaurant when customers enter their parking lot and signal employees to bring out their food. The service expands Panera’s free Wi-Fi outside restaurant walls.
5. Takeout alcohol
When shutdowns of restaurants and bars began in March, California suspended liquor laws to allow restaurants to sell cocktails to go. The state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control has updated its notice of regulatory relief four times since then, most recently allowing businesses such as beer and wine tasting rooms that partner with meal providers, to sell alcoholic beverages as long as there’s a meal purchase.
“That’s been a big difference in this new normal, the fact that we’re able to do mixed drinks for takeout and delivery,” said Simms.
The rule suspensions are open-ended, but according to Simms the National Restaurant Association and state trade associations are working to make them permanent.
Nearly every state has or had temporary measures in place for alcohol sales during shutdowns, according to data provided by the National Restaurant Association.
Cocktails to-go have been a popular and important source of revenue for restaurants in recent weeks, Mike Whatley, the association’s vice president for State and Local Affairs said in an email.
“While restaurants across the country are slowly starting to reopen, we know the road to recovery will be long, and we hope that the alcohol to-go regulations that helped sustain restaurants during the emergency will become permanent going forward.”