Wingstop’s first-quarter results were good, but in the early weeks of the second quarter, the company’s deep commitment to digital operations sent its sales skyward. The company reported a 9.9 percent same-store sales increase through the quarter which ended March 30. Nearly half—47 percent—of those orders were digital. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the company closed dining rooms in mid-March, there was an initial transaction decline and a small uptick in transaction size in the range of a typical online order bump of $5. But in April, company sales […]
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Usually, earnings calls are great information but can have a canned feeling with the droll back-and-forth between management and stock analysts. The latest Grubhub call, however, shed a lot of light not only on company performance during the COVID crisis but also how the company sees the handful of critiques it is facing. Grubhub ended the first quarter with 23.9 million active diners, up 24 percent year-over-year and up 1.3 million from the fourth quarter of 2019. Food sales were $1.6 billion, which is up slightly from $1.5 billion in […]
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Mooyah is tweaking its still-new restaurant prototype design to reflect the post-COVID-19 reality of smaller dining rooms and more space for off-premises curbside and delivery orders. That’s one of many quick shifts as the burger franchise executes an ongoing five-year plan that includes a more mature logo that’s less “Yahoo!” and more “this is a burger establishment.” For nearly two months now, Mooyah’s leadership team has been meeting twice daily as the significance of the pandemic-induced crisis first became clear. One of the Texas-based brand’s first responses was implementing a […]
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Online grocery sales in the U.S. grew by 37 percent in April, to a total of $5.3 billion, according to research from Brick Meets Click and Symphony Retail AI. The headline figure is a 33 percent increase in the total number of online grocery orders placed in the past 30 days, which increased to 62.5 million over 46.9 million during March, bolstered by a modest increase in basket size, as well. Diving into the motivating factors behind the surge, the report also asked online grocery consumers about their concerns related […]
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Cousins Subs moved quickly and aggressively to blunt the impact of statewide lockdowns on the sandwich brand, including the fast-track addition of three more national delivery providers and leaning into drive-thru operations at the third of its restaurants with drive-thrus, and are seeing the best sales growth during the pandemic. To keep up, Cousins VP of Marketing Justin McCoy has been putting in long hours from the dining room table in his four-seasons porch at home. Diving into the specific campaigns, tweaks and new initiatives to react to the crisis, […]
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A new report from research firm Second Measure shows growth for the overall U.S. restaurant delivery scene, with sales at national third-party delivery providers growing a collective 24 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. In addition, statewide locks also appear to be driving more Americans to try restaurant delivery for the first time, with 28 percent of U.S. consumers now well versed in the ways of online restaurant delivery. With plenty of caveats in the way Second Measure collected its data through the end of March, the […]
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To cope with the rapid surge of online grocery orders, Instacart is planning to hire an additional 250,000 full-service shoppers over the next two months for grocery delivery and pickup operations in North America. The massive hiring push is part of a number of measures Instacart has implemented to handle increased volume, including new in-app shopper wellness checks and the expansion of its extended pay policies and bonuses for shoppers and in-store teams. “Overnight, we’ve become a necessity for millions of people and our teams are working tirelessly to launch […]
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Delivery providers may be reporting a surge in orders as COVID-19 keeps diners at home, but the pandemic is expected to hurt more in the long term, according to a Wells Fargo financial analyst. In a research note from John Power, a senior analyst at Wells Fargo who covers the food delivery space, the pain point comes from an expected decline in independent restaurants. According to the Wells Fargo restaurants team, as high as 25 percent of independent restaurants “will shut down entirely because delivery sales will be insufficient to […]
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Sparked by a San Francisco decision to cap third-party delivery fees, several other U.S. cities are implementing or discussing their own cap-limitations in the name of helping restaurants. San Francisco Mayor London Breed said the 15-percent fee cap is “part of a broader effort to support small business” in the city. Currently, the San Francisco order lasts until the end of May after being extended from mid April. The declaration is likely to be extended again in San Francisco and other major markets as cities reach a peak of COVID-19 […]
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Don’t call it a ghost kitchen and certainly don’t call it a virtual restaurant: The parent company of Ruby Tuesday has launched a new initiative called Franklin Junction that introduces a new delivery-focused model that it calls “host kitchens.” At its core, the plan is relatively simple. It allows outside restaurant brands to use the excess kitchen capacity at existing casual restaurants across the country strictly for delivery and as a low-cost option for brands looking to enter new markets. If all goes according to designs laid out by Ruby […]
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