Crepe Crazy explains reopening priorities and impact on business
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott allowed restaurants to start reopening on Friday, May 1. However, not all restaurants are opening their dining rooms.
Crepe Crazy, a Deaf-owned restaurant in Austin, posted on their Facebook page that they would not open their dining rooms because they are “working towards a safe opening for all.”
(Facebook post)
Michelle Giterman, the restaurant general manager, will explain why they made this decision.
MICHELLE GITERMAN:
Hi, I’m Michelle. I’m the General Manager for our family owned business, Crepe Crazy.
I wanted to expand on Governor Abbott’s upcoming plans. Today was the beginning of Phase One of the state’s reopening economy. First, we’ll start with movie theaters, malls, retailers, churches, and restaurants who will allow dine-ins at only 25% occupancy limit. If all goes well and there are no significant upticks in COVID-19 related cases, we will commence with the phase two of our reopening economy on May 18. In South Lamar — we have two storefront restaurants — for the South Lamar location, the occupancy is at 100 people. It means we can only allow up to 25 people in the establishment which is pretty a lot. Also, those restaurants who are allowing dine-ins have to abide by rules such as requiring that they offer disposable menus for each of their customers to use. Utensils must be packaged and each table may seat only up to 6 people. This can feel quite jarring, especially for us deaf people, because it can be tough for those who might need help reading the menu while they have to maintain a 6-feet distance. We did have a discussion that if we were to allow dine-in customers then we determined that we needed to assign 1 or 2 more staff to be able to handle cleaning the tables and making sure things are in order. While we were figuring things out, we were thinking on whether there would be an influx of customers into our restaurant while considering the current environment that’s full of raw emotion, anxiety, fear and panic. We thought people would probably not be able to dine-in comfortably and is this worth put extra staff at work? If we had assigned extra employees, that would’ve increased our labor rate which is not beneficial to our company financial wise, so we felt that this was probably not the best move. To us, the bottom line is health before money. We do not want to support the type of behavior where people can think it’s okay to comfortably dine-in amongst crowds. To be honest, the curve isn’t flattening at all because it’s actually still rising upwards. We want to encourage people to stay home and help each other flatten that curve together!
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THE DAILY MOTH:
I asked her how they have handled the COVID-19 pandemic and how they have responded to all the changes.
GITERMAN:
In general, the restaurant industry has been hit particularly hard. We did experience some revenue loss ourselves. We had to become more creative in order to adapt to the new normal. We figured out a few things and one idea was to incorporate the curbside pickup concept.
That means the customer would order online then arrive at either one of our stores before texting us informing us their names, their car model and color. Our staff would then inform our manager on duty that the customer has arrived, and the manager will bring out the order to the customer in their cars. Often our clients leave either the trunk or back doors open so the manager can deliver the order while minimizing contact.
Secondly, we’ve been encouraging ordering online and take-out as we’d rather that our customers didn’t walk-in, but we are fine with this for the time being.
Also, the third and biggest change we accomplished, since our government passed a bill where our retailers now can sell grocery food. We are now selling food items at our stores like fresh produce, diary, cheese, dry goods and other things. Also, we offer house-made products like lemon salad dressing, basil pesto and such that we’ve been selling out of our stores thus far. That has been a major help in terms of increasing revenue. For us to do this, I feel that it’s the right thing to do since statistics show that, in the city of Austin, 50% of its people usually go food shopping while the other 50% of its people eat out. Knowing this, now people are swarming to food stores and clearing their shelves. The demand and supply has dramatically changed. People are struggling to find the food they need. Our restaurants usually get constant food supply from our distributors and now we want to give back to our community. We have food available for you so we are stocking up so our customers can order online then we’ll pack up food and bring it to your car. That avoids any interaction with crowds or in lines or touching food that other people has touched. I strongly encourage everyone to practice social distancing. Please stay home and stay healthy! I’m truly grateful for my essential workers and our community that has been supportive to its local businesses. We have suffered, but it’s because of you that we’re still here so we thank you!
THE DAILY MOTH:
Thank you, Michelle and Crepe Crazy for explaining things from your perspective. If you’re in the Austin area, you can support their business!