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Tanishia Beacham, senior vice president of operations and operating systems with Sonic Drive-In, saw the pandemic's difficulties as an opportunity to double down on her people-focused goals with the Inspire Brands concept.
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. ...
Hooters began the rollout of its Hoots Wings fast-casual brand well before the pandemic, but a virtual version of the concept has been the brand’s saving grace throughout the past year. As CEO of the Atlanta-based Hooters of America Restaurant Group, Sal Melilli told Nation’s Restaurant News, “When people think of Hooters, they think of Hooters girls and wings.” So, when customers could no longer visit the restaurants, the brand experience became exclusively about the wings. Wings were a big-seller during the COVID-19 pandemic with brands known for wings, such as Wingstop Inc., seeing sales increases, and others, including casual-dining concepts, creating virtual wing brands to boost business. Wings became a pandemic advantage for Hooters, which relied on big in-person experiences like the Super Bowl or March Madness for some of its best sales days But there’s still the matter of the other part of Hooters, “Hooter’s girls.” Melilli has been on a mission to focus the brand on its people since he was named CEO in 2020. Part of that was addressing the women who work at the chain. In the past few years, the “breastaurant” chain has weathered the #MeToo movement and a rise in sexual harassment of servers during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said Hooters maintains a no-tolerance policy for any harassment, sexual or otherwise, coming from guests or employees to one another. In this episode, Melilli explains how Hoot’s Wings has expanded during the pandemic, the future of franchising and how he, as CEO, has put people at the center of the company. ...
This week on the Extra Serving podcast, a production of Nation’s Restaurant News’ Last Bite Network, NRN editors Sam Oches and Holly Petre discuss new year’s resolutions and hopes for the restaurant industry. Mostly, the two discuss the biggest phrase in the world right now: the Great Resignation. The restaurant industry has been hit the hardest by what was once dubbed the labor crisis but morphed into the Great Resignation as the new year dawned. Oches and Petre cover why the restaurant industry is being hit particularly hard and what operators can do to combat some of the issues the crisis has brought up including pay, worker treatment and career advancement. Finally, the episode wraps up with an interview with Kristen Barnett, the CEO and founder of Hungry House, a Brooklyn-based anti-ghost kitchen company focused on chefs. Barnett and editor Lisa Jennings discuss the business and what it means to be an anti-ghost kitchen. ...
