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Companies Emphasize Safety First as Dining Rooms Reopen
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No one ever said owning a small business was easy, but with hard work, focus, passion and a little luck, many find entrepreneurship to be fulfilling and rewarding. Of course, there are always obstacles to success, but in 2020, the challenges have gone far beyond what any small-business owner reasonably expects to face in a year.
The difficulties brought to bear on the restaurant industry by the coronavirus pandemic have been particularly heavy. COVID-19 and the corresponding government-mandated closures and restrictions on dine-in operations have caused more disruption of this industry than perhaps any other, save for fitness clubs and hair salons.
Buffalo Wild Wings® franchisees have been stung particularly hard. The closures of their dining rooms forced them to quickly ramp-up takeout operations without the benefit of a drive-thru lane and limited staff experience for working with customers that way. Mastering that, there was then the challenge of developing new procedures for safely reopening dining rooms and getting their teams trained to execute them.
Of course, nearly six months into the pandemic, not all states had allowed restaurants to open their dining rooms, and in most places where they were open, there were restrictions on how many guests could be served as part of the regimen to ensure safety from the coronavirus. Operating within those restrictions was one piece of the puzzle that restaurants were faced with solving to get eat-in service restarted.
BWW® franchisees are quickly putting the pieces together, however. Groups such as High 5 Hospitality and World Wide Wings (WWW) have taken guidance from health officials, the
by Sean Ireland
franchisor and other experts and combined it with their own operational acumen to develop practices that keep dining rooms sanitized and socially distanced and give employees and guests confidence that they are safe.
“Our franchise focus, from the beginning of the pandemic, has always been the safety of our team members and guests,” said Jimmy Calo, a California district manager for World Wide Wings, which has 67 BWW locations in seven states. “As such, our reopening guidelines were developed with strict adherence to all federal, state and local guidelines. Our locations have reopened on the side of caution and have ensured that our sports bars and teams are hyper-focused on maintaining a safe dining environment.”
That is the guiding philosophy behind the practices that have been developed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. WWW made changes to floor plans by putting some tables into storage and adding space between others. The company retooled server support stations to accommodate additional tools and supplies for dining, including single-use utensils and condiments. It’s also added sanitation stations in strategic locations. In California, the company has had to move all dine-in business to seating outside the sports bar, a monumental task that required equipment rentals, retooling of audio and visual systems, and additional safety and sanitation measures.
“The biggest changes during round one of reopening have been the reduced seating capacity and the additional procedures necessary for sanitation for COVID-19,” Calo said. “The reduced
capacity required all our locations to rearrange their dining rooms to ensure social distancing. The additional sanitation procedures required additional training for our team members and systems of accountability for our operators.”
WWW used the resources of the franchisor, including its digital learning and training platform, as a key tool for getting the federal and state health guidelines into the hands of employees. “The ServSafe COVID-19 training that was mandatory for all managers and team members was instrumental in aligning everyone on all safety procedures. In conjunction with shoulder-to-shoulder coaching, it has helped us to ensure a safe and smooth operation,” Calo said.
High 5 Hospitality (H5H) put social-distancing marks on the floor at its sports bars and switched to single-use and digital menus, removed condiment bottles from tables and requires employees to wear face masks, answer health questionnaires and complete temperature checks before starting shifts. The company also makes sure guests see employees regularly wiping things down, especially high-touch surfaces, something industry research conducted and published by Toast shows will be considered most important to the dining experience by 64% of guests as restaurants resume on-premise service.
The company was keenly focused on getting its employees trained on new procedures for serving and interacting with guests. “Fortunately, we had the guidelines a few days before we went ‘live’ and the dining rooms were closed,” said Bobby Pancake, franchisee with H5H, which operates eight locations in Delaware and Maryland. “This gave us ample time and a great facility to hold all staff meetings. As the rules are constantly changing, we update the teams via the communication board, notes in the scheduling app and pre-shift meetings.”
Slowly, but surely, H5H’s locations are getting back into action. “Beginning June 1, during phase one [of reopening] in Delaware, it was reservation-only for a couple of weeks and 30% capacity and no bar seating. In Maryland, it was patio-only for a couple of weeks. Then we moved to 60% and 50%, respectively, social distancing at the bar and a plethora of mandated signage,” Pancake said.
From these beginnings, there is hope the pandemic will fade and things will continue to improve. As more and more sporting events return to the airwaves, both companies anticipate a positive effect on dine-in business. “We have no doubt that our guests are ready to watch sports in our sports bars,” Calo said. “Our operators are plugged into their locations and guests and are constantly revising schedules, orders and staffing to meet the demand for live viewing in our sports bars.”
H5H expects a 25% increase in sales versus current trends and to get back to 50% to 60% of its pre-pandemic numbers if things continue to improve across the nation as it moves into football season. “Hopefully, we can get past all the restrictions and back to a new normal,” Pancake said.
That new normal includes expanded operating hours too. Both companies curtailed hours in the name of meeting state and local government safety mandates. H5H began to open for longer periods of time in August, and WWW has also boosted hours in locations where it is allowed.
Everyone hopes that as the nation moves into the fall, COVID-19 infections will drop and restrictions on dining at restaurants can be eased further. Both companies know that to help make it happen, their sports bars must stay focused on carrying out the new procedures. H5H does it with continual follow-up at its locations by its managers and chief operating officer and providing consistent updates to employees on any changes they need to make. WWW’s operators use audits, check lists and digital check-ins to ensure that all the guidelines and safety procedures are being maintained and updated as needed.
They’re certainly being watched to be sure that they do. Health inspectors make regular visits at the sports bars of each company. “Many of our locations have had positive, fair and helpful visits from local health authorities,” Calo said. “Our operators have found that these authorities and our brand have the same goal: safe operations for our team members and guests. They have been a great resource for clarification of guidelines and have been sharing best practices from across industries to aid our locations in maintaining safe dining environments.”
H5H’s interactions with health authorities and alcohol enforcement officers have been somewhat less collaborative, with Pancake reporting that officials are deputizing members of the public to make them aware of any violations by the sports bars.
It’s all the more reason to ensure that employees know what they are doing and that all the reopening and safety procedures are being followed consistently and visibly. “It is very important that both our teams and guests know that our sports bars are following all mandated guidelines for reopening and, in many ways, going beyond recommendations to ensure the safety of our team and guests,” Calo said. S
