At Dutch Bros, “the product is love” — and that helped a lot in 2020

Over the past couple of months during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, while many pizza chains were seeing the benefit of their delivery-focused business, Boston Pizza — the Canada-based pizzeria/sports restaurant with 21 locations in 15 states across the U.S. — struggled and had to close nearly half of their locations. “We have gourmet pizza and it’s not the most inexpensive pizza, so we’re faring more like typical casual dining restaurant than some of the pizza delivery companies that have been wining in this situation,” Boston Pizza president Jeff Melnick said. For the Boston Pizza restaurants that stayed open, the company implemented operational changes across their franchise system in order to transition to a temporary off-premise business model, from scaling down their 80-item menu for delivery to customizing “touchless labels” to ensure customers that their food had been sealed. But, as Melnick said, as many states are now allowing restaurants to reopen their dining rooms, Boston Pizza is undergoing the process of recovery and slowly opening up their restaurants again. Currently, six Boston Pizza restaurants are available for dine-in and in the weeks that they have been open have seen 75% of their usual sales. “We’re still seeing positive sales trends,” Melnick said. “ [This is] going to be a challenge but that will be short lived.” Listen to his story in this week’s episode of our Extra Serving podcast. ...

This week on the Extra Serving podcast, a production of Nation’s Restaurant News, NRN editors Holly Petre, Leigh Anne Zinsmeister, Sam Oches and Lisa Jennings discussed Panera Bread’s entrance into the chicken sandwich wars with its own healthier option. The fast-casual chain announced the new menu item earlier this week with a healthier spin: The chicken isn’t fried like the rest of its chicken sandwich war competitors. Is it too late to join the chicken sandwich was? Is it time to retire the name? The editors discuss.  Next, the team discussed third-party delivery company Waitr’s new policy of passing out gas cards to employees to help offset the price of gas for its drivers. The team speaks about the logistics of being a delivery driver and how this move can or will impact restaurants who may be experiencing slower-than-usual traffic due to rising gas prices. Then, the team discussed how Grubhub is being sued by the city of Washington D.C., following in the footsteps of many other cities, for false advertising and excessive fees tied to the pandemic. Plus, chef Spike Mendelsohn talks with Jennings about Chfty Pizza, his new NFT collaboration with Tom Colicchio on Discord that’s functioning as a membership to a community of chefs and foodies alike with an online presence and in real life events. ...

Bloomin’ Brand Inc. during the height of coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions made the decision to maintain its payrolls and not furlough or lay off workers amid the numerous lockdowns. David Deno, CEO of Tampa, Fla.-based Bloomin’ Brands, said the decision paid off in helping sales normalize when restaurant dining rooms were allowed to open some of their dining rooms. “When this first happened in mid-March, we wanted to do two things. One, we wanted to take care of our employees. And two, we wanted to serve great food in a safe environment — either in the restaurant or in peoples’ homes.” Because of state and local coronavirus restrictions, that soon became exclusively off-premise Bloomin’s brands, which include Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar and the newer stand-alone, drive-thru Aussie Grill by Outback. “We knew that if we could retain our people and pay them, even if they weren’t working, and not let them go, it would improve employee engagement [and] that would enable us to bring people back right away when the restaurants reopened,” Deno said. “We wouldn’t have to recruit people. And we wouldn’t have to train people. That is exactly what happened.” ...