Franchisees Answer Pandemic Challenges With Innovation in Delivery and Takeout
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2020 Issue 3 |
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here are two ways to take a sucker punch: You can stay down for the count, or you can pull yourself up and swing back. Buffalo Wild Wings® franchisees took a tough blow from the coronavirus pandemic. Shuttered dining rooms meant switching all food sales to takeout and delivery. For quick-service restaurants, with established drive-thru lanes and staff well-trained on the procedures for serving guests that way, a closed dining room does not have the same impact as it does for a casual dining brand. For restaurants like BWW®, well, POW! B-Dubs® franchisees are not waiting for the ref to count them out, however. Organizations like High 5 Hospitality, Potters Wings, Spark Restaurants and World Wide Wings are back on their
feet and throwing counterpunches with innovations that not only answered the challenges their organizations faced in transitioning to takeout and delivery sales, but also have the potential to stick around when things eventually return to normal. Early this summer, Potters Wings and franchisee Brian Jordan, with seven BWW locations in Alabama and Mississippi, made headlines by partnering with startup company Deuce Drone, based in Mobile, Alabama, to begin making food deliveries by drone. “I believe it is the future of last-mile delivery, and it gives us the ability to be the last ones to handle the product before it gets to our guests,” Jordan said. “It is a contactless form of delivery, which COVID-19 has shown us the importance
Limited delivery of orders by drones from two BWW restaurants in Alabama is scheduled to begin in the fall. by Sean Ireland
of. Food will get to guests quicker, hotter or colder – depending, it will be less expensive, and the cool factor is undeniable.” When ready, the system will allow a BWW team member to package a completed order into a box that is then loaded into a port inside or outside the restaurant. The port system does the rest, with loading and takeoff occurring automatically. Drones are guided by a pad displaying a large QR code at the destination. Testing was done in August, and plans are for the first deliveries to be made in the next few months from Potters Wings’ Foley and Mobile, Alabama, Buffalo Wild Wings locations. “We will then add to our other locations as the service becomes available in those markets,” Jordan said. While perhaps not as high-flying as delivering food by air, other franchisees have been no less energetic about devising ways to improve their systems for safely providing food to customers outside of dining rooms.
