Food On Demand reporters Nick Upton, Laura Michaels, Tom Kaiser and Callie Evergreen tried curbside delivery service from Red Robin, Applebee’s, Chili’s and TGI Fridays. Our results varied, of course, but there’s always room for improvement.
In an unprecedented time, restaurants large and small are closing dining rooms, laying off staff, and scrambling to figure out off-premises solutions. Empty, closed-off dining rooms even in areas where it’s not mandated by local governments are certainly the most visible response to the ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic. Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Chick-fil-A were the first brands to announce they would shut down dining rooms, but remain open for delivery and to-go orders. And hour-by-hour, more brands announce drastic changes to operations from closing dining rooms, reducing hours or shutting down […]
The focus of the piece is survival and what you can do to stay in business and protect the long-term viability of your restaurant operation. Two things are paramount in this moment: keeping your employees informed and preserving cash at all costs.
Food On Demand spoke to restaurant attorney Ryan Palmer about conversations with restaurant clients related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is closing dining rooms and forcing others to pivot exclusively to off-premises operations. Palmer said this moment is bigger than the Great Recession, and that pivoting to takeout and delivery won’t be nearly enough to bridge the gap for restaurants that now have empty dining rooms.
With many states and local municipalities closing bars and restaurants or restricting service to off-premises channels only, the four largest U.S.-based national delivery providers have rolled out a wave of ways to help their restaurant partners. So far, those efforts include increased marketing to boost delivery in general; Grubhub suspending $100 million in commission payments from independent restaurants under limited circumstances; Uber Eats waiving delivery fees for independent restaurants and allowing daily, rather than weekly merchant payouts; and Postmates waiving commission fees in certain markets. Here’s a rundown of the […]
Nobody knows how the current social distancing and mandated bar and restaurant restrictions will impact the wider foodservice industry as many restaurants pivot to off-premises-only operations or close down, but the leading restaurant analysts are zeroing in on what the coronavirus scare means for individual restaurants and investors in the space. As Wells Fargo analysts Jon Tower and William Miller note with an iceberg analogy, the most disconcerting thing at the moment is not the financials analysts see, but what lies beneath the visible surface. Below are excerpts of the […]
The appeal of virtual restaurant concepts for existing restaurateurs looking to monetize excess kitchen capacity is straightforward, but getting new online-only virtual brands up and running still takes work like negotiating new contracts, securing prime placement on delivery apps, creating branding and building buzz. A new company called Nextbite aims to simplify the process by offering restaurant operators its own handmade virtual restaurant brands they could implement in a flash, with no financial risk beyond food costs. Nextbite’s CEO Geoff Madding said many people have the same response when learning […]
After testing Postmates on-demand delivery services from Walgreens stores in New York City last fall, the second-largest U.S. pharmacy chain announced it is expanding its Postmates partnership to bring delivery service to an additional 13 cities across the country. Walgreens consumers in Los Angeles; San Francisco; San Diego; Phoenix; Las Vegas; Portland (OR); Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Atlanta; Charlotte; Miami; Ft. Lauderdale; and Houston can now get health and wellness and other convenience products, including certain over-the-counter medications, delivered to them via Postmates. In making the announcement, Craig Whitmer, Postmates’ vice […]
The World Health Organization announced that that the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 is officially a pandemic. That scary news marks the first official pandemic since the 2009 Swine Flu (H1N1). The response from the delivery industry has been swift and many key best practices are emerging to keep things clean and slow the spread of the virus. In China, where the virus emerged, there has been an incredible response to the disease from city-wide quarantines to shutting down complete industries. In the hardest hit areas, restaurants are sending out […]
After testing Postmates on-demand delivery from Walgreens stores in New York City last fall, the second-largest U.S. pharmacy chain announced it is expanding its Postmates with partnership to bring delivery service to an additional 13 cities across the country.
