Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

restaurants

Moe’s Southwest Grill Opens Kiosk-Only Restaurant

Atlanta, GA-headquarterd Moe’s Southwest Grill is best known for its fast-casual take on Mexican food. It could also soon be known for the tech it uses to get said Mexican food to customers in a more contactless format. Today, the chain announced that its new kiosk-only location is open for business in Pittsburgh, PA.

This is the first of what will be multiple kiosk-only locations for Moe’s. The chain had originally planned to launch its Pittsburg location as well as one in Charlottesville, VA in the first quarter of 2020. It’s unclear if the pandemic was the reason for the delay.

The kiosk-only Moe’s is exactly as it sounds. The restaurant, owned and operated by Moe’s multi-unit franchisee, Mike Geiger, features multiple kiosks from which customers can directly order and pay for food, skipping the need for human-to-human interaction. 

One POS terminal and cashier will be available for customers that prefer ordering and paying for their meals via another human being.

The role kiosks play in the future of ordering and paying for restaurant food is still being determined. These standalone machines that require you to touch a screen could be seen by more wary customers as germ repositories. However, keying items in on a screen still requires less human-to-human interaction than talking to a cashier, and there’s also indications that facial recognition and gesture tech could soon become part of kiosk design. Others, like this restaurant in Sweden, are placing kiosks behind glass walls and in doing so making them accessible to outside foot traffic. 

For now, the Moe’s in Pittsburgh will feature regular old kiosks that accept Apple Pay, university cards (for college students in the surrounding area), and cash. Cash, in particular, is important, since one of the issues with digital payments at restaurants is that they exclude millions of unbanked and underbanked individuals in the U.S. While cashless payments are the norm in some countries (see: Sweden), it’s unlikely restaurants across the U.S. will go full-on cashless anytime soon. Self-order kiosks and other contactless restaurant tech coming out of the pandemic will need to account for that fact. 

Investing into the Future of Restaurant Tech:  Navigating the “New Normal”

This is a guest post written by Brita Rosenheim, Partner at Better Food Ventures.

“Normal” noun: the usual, …typical state or condition.

As we have all experienced during this pandemic, we know that nothing has been “usual” or “typical”, particularly for restaurants as they have had to fight and innovate just to survive these last few months. The “new normal” is about change. To thrive in this fluid environment restaurant operators will need to accelerate pre-COVID digital trends, embrace new notions of what constitutes a restaurant, and look to technology to strengthen their brand and relationship with customers. 

Convenience reigns supreme: The shift to take-out/delivery will reshape the basic premise of many restaurants

Well before COVID-related shutdowns, the increasing customer demands for convenience had already fueled a major shift from dine-in to take out/delivery. In 2019, we reached the tipping point where off-premise sales (drive-thru, takeout, delivery, catering) represented a majority of U.S. restaurant revenues. Now, intensified by a decimated restaurant industry and an uncertain socially-distanced future, the growth of off-premise will only continue.

As restaurant operators increasingly respond to our “new normal”, we have seen many full-service restaurant concepts testing a more “fast casual” off-premise approach, with increased tech-focused integration, minimized employee/customer exposure, and a lot of creativity to inject hospitality into socially-distanced interactions.

The bottom line is that the restaurant experience – from QSR to Fine Dining – will increasingly no longer be confined to the four walls of a restaurant. We have reached an urgent point where the basic premise of dine-in restaurants must evolve in order to generate the sales volume and margins to remain financially viable. 

The Evolution of the Digital-Forward Restaurant: Integration is Key

Digitization alone will not save the restaurant industry, but it is becoming economically and operationally imperative to upgrade IT systems for more seamless integration across all digital channels. And with digital channels (online, mobile, app, and kiosk) representing only ~10% of total U.S. restaurant sales (for both on-premise and off-premise combined, pre-COVID), there is still tremendous opportunity to upgrade.

For example, integrating a restaurant’s digital channels provides the opportunity to increase first-party data capture, create operational efficiencies, target higher margin customers, better upsell and customer incentivisation, while also letting operators make better decisions based on the underlying connected data. 

That’s not to say digitization guarantees success. Adding new digital channels can also create operational bottlenecks, silo’d data, or added complexity/margin erosion via third party providers. In order to mitigate some of these key risks, operators are increasingly integrating digital ordering/delivery within the POS system, and driving orders via white label platforms. As most operators are now aware of, third-party aggregator platforms own the customer data through their platforms (not the restaurants), underscoring the importance for restaurants to integrate ordering/delivery through their own branded websites/apps.

Beyond updating the underlying IT-infrastructure, the new digital-forward restaurant experience also requires physical changes in both back- and front-of-house layouts to address congestion, capacity constraints and the added complexity of accommodating mobile customers and delivery workers. 

Physical characteristics of the new generation of restaurants will likely be smaller footprints, limited/no seating, separate larger areas and clear signage for digital/off-premise orders, as well as increased off-premise commissary/ghost kitchen prep for multi-unit operators. The customer experience will further be supported by dedicated employees for digital orders, increased mobile / kiosk order options, as well as touchless/frictionless ordering/pick-up methods using URLs, QR codes, or NFC tags.

Digitizing the Guest Relationship: Omnichannel loyalty will be a critical lifeline within a sea of aggregators and marketplaces

Hospitality and guest relationships are key reasons why many operators are in this business. However, it has become increasingly hard for them to own and manage a direct customer relationship. This is primarily due to content aggregators and ordering/delivery marketplaces steadily growing control over most restaurant/food reviews and direct ordering/delivery relationships.

Thus a strong, omnichannel loyalty platform is one of the last avenues for operators to own their customer base. Loyalty should be a critical area of investment, and successful operators will optimize their tech strategy to capture as much digital data as possible. 

During this new era of decreased order volumes and disconnected customer journeys, data-driven omnichannel loyalty will help operators uphold the brand, funnel customers into more profitable digital channels, and ultimately drive a richer relationship with customers by connecting all the dots across all touchpoints and interactions.

Automation and Tech-Driven Interactions: Will the Robots Take Over?

In short, no. We have seen the recent struggles of scalability by a number of fully robotic food solutions, due to the fact that labor/cost savings are rarely realized due to the complexity and cost of the technologies. 

However, in contrast to fully robotic food solutions, I do believe that this “new normal” will make specific task automation, voice assistance, and computer vision increasingly vital and prevalent across the industry. Adoption rates won’t skyrocket overnight, but they are absolutely escalating.

As restaurant operators seek to reduce employee/customer contact and offset workforce challenges, while looking to increase operational efficiencies, speed of service and quality control, they will look for technology partnerships to leverage robotics, automation, computer vision, and voice technologies. 

Some of my favorite solutions in this category include: precision preparation/cooking, smart IoT Kitchen Display Systems (KDS), voice- or computer-vision-driven inventory analysis, natural language drive-thru/phone ordering platforms, cashierless checkout, and food waste management technologies. Bolstered by the pre-COVID off-premise trends, “Smart Vending” is also on the rise; be sure to check out the recently published Smart Vending Machine Market Report by The Spoon.

Moving the Needle on Adoption: What’s Next? 

The net effect of the “new normal” is that it has yet to unleash any completely new, innovative concepts in restaurant technology. Instead we are seeing– or are likely to see– the accelerated adoption of innovations that existed pre-COVID that move restaurant concepts beyond their traditional four walls, and closer to the real digitization necessary to sustain financial viability in our shared new reality.  

——————

At Better Food Ventures, we believe technology will prove to be the single biggest catalyst to solving critical problems across the global food ecosystem, and we are particularly encouraged by the continued growth of tech-driven innovations and frameworks across the food sector. We welcome your thoughts and reactions, and look forward to following this sector together in the coming years.

The Food Tech Show Podcast: Will You Be Dining With a Mannequin?

Most of us are eager to start dining in again at restaurants, but are we ready?

We discuss the huge spectrum of responses we got when we asked our readers if they’re ready to start dining in restaurants again on this week’s Food Tech Show, as well as some of the innovative ways restaurants are dealing with dining in the era of COVID.

One restaurant is putting mannequins at tables as a way to fill in the gaps between socially distanced diners. Another restaurant in Amsterdam is seating diners in glass houses.

Other topics discussed on this week’s show include a small bowl-food-for-one cooking system looking to make its way into college dorms and small apartments, and a leap forward in cross-industry collaboration for food traceability.

Just click play below or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Report: Restaurant Transactions are Inching Towards Improvement for Major Chains

Restaurant transactions are improving — for some. Today, the NPD Group said customer transactions at major U.S. restaurant chains saw a slight uptick for the week ending May 31. Transactions at these chains declined by 18 percent compared to the same period one year ago. That’s a 3 percent week-over-week improvement.  

NPD has been providing regular updates on restaurant transactions for a number of weeks now as dining rooms slowly reopen and the restaurant industry as a whole continues to grapple with the unprecedented disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Other notable numbers from this latest report include:

  • Restaurants in states where dining rooms are still closed had the steepest declines [—DECLINES OF WHAT?—]. For New York and California, that was negative 34 and negative 27 percent, respectively. 
  • By contrast, transactions in Kentucky, which was allowed to reopen on May 11, saw a 2 percent decline.
  • Full-service restaurant chains saw a negative 37 percent decline, which is a 15 percent increase from the prior week.
  • QSR chains saw a 16 percent decline in transactions versus 18 percent in the previous week.

David Portalatin, NPD food industry advisor noted in the release that the foodservice industry is “solidly in the re-start phase,” and that it will only be in a true recovery phase when all states reopen their dining rooms. Only then can we start to make “a detailed assessment of how many permanent restaurant closures there are and how that will affect what the industry will look like as it re-emerges.”

At least 3 percent of restaurants have already permanently shuttered due to the pandemic. Many of those have been independent restaurants, though some chains have also had to shut down locations.

And while we may not know exactly what the future restaurant industry looks like, one thing we can count on is more off-premises orders. Pretty much everyone, from family sit-down chains to fine-dining restaurants, are encouraged to continue offering to-go options to customers. Some chains are even launching to-go-focused concepts, while others are turning to the ghost kitchen concept to fulfill more delivery orders.

How big a role off-premises will play remains to be seen, and we likely won’t have a clear idea of that until more states reopen dining rooms. For now, delivery, ghost kitchens, virtual restaurant concepts, and other off-premises strategies have yet to prove themselves as real lifelines for businesses.  

Watch: Chef José Andrés Video Chats with Dr. Fauci About How to Re-Open Restaurants

What kinds of masks should staff wear? Should they use gloves or hand sanitizer? What should you do if a positive case of COVID-19 hits your business? These are just some of the questions that Chef José Andrés had for Dr. Anthony Fauci about safely re-opening restaurants during the pandemic.

Chef Andrés hosted a video chat with the epidemiologist today on Instagram and asked a bunch of straightforward, practical questions for the now-famous epidemiologist. It’s a good watch for any restaurant owner looking to open back up and even for restaurant goers to better educate themselves before heading back out to eat.

It also covers a lot of what we’ve been wondering about ourselves here at The Spoon as we begin the slow process of emerging from the pandemic.

Food Tech Intelligence Brief: Will COVID-19 Mean A Lost Generation of Kitchen Tech?

Welcome to the Spoon Plus Weekly Intelligence Brief. Each week I’ll dissect trends that are unfolding in the world of food tech.

We’ve read a lot over the past two months about the loss of restaurants. Some prognosticators suggest that up to 75% of independent restaurants could permanently disappear.

While the pandemic’s impact on restaurants will continue to be massive and will undoubtedly reshape that industry’s landscape for years to come, another food-related market – appliances and housewares – could also see a dramatic impact in a much different form.

First, the good news. Since quarantines have started in the US, the home appliance market has seen a surge in demand as consumers have shifted to staying and home and eating a much larger number of their meals at home.

Download Report

Did you know you can download a PDF of this report? Just click the download button and you’re good to go.

Download

This graphic from NPD’s Joe Derochowski shows how overall kitchen electrics have seen a bump in absolute dollars spent as consumers buy countertop appliances to help them cook at home. Total dollar percentage change for kitchen electrics was up 22% during lockdown.

Figure 1: Percentage Growth of Home Products March 15th-April 18th (NPD Data)

But while a near-term jump in consumer purchases of countertop cooking appliances is no doubt good for the bottom line for some of these companies, the untold story is COVID-19 no doubt set back the same industry from a product roadmap perspective.

At least that’s my belief after looking at data from our COVID-19 impact survey of food and kitchen industry professionals (see the full report here) conducted in late April. I cut a slice of the data from the survey, which had 377 respondents across the food and related industries, to look at how those within the home appliance and housewares market responded.

As you’ll see from this chart, the appliance/houseware business wasn’t immune to the pandemic’s impact, with 43% indicating their company had to lay off or furlough employees (compared to 52% of the broader food industry).

Figure 2: Have you had to lay off or furlough employees due to COVID-19?

Perhaps the most significant impact in the appliance and housewares businesses is not the near-term impact on employee headcount, but a longer-term impact on company product roadmaps.

The graph below shows the results from where we asked our survey respondents whether they had to delay or cancel a product. 

Figure 3: Has your company had to delay or cancel a new product due to COVID-19?

58% of those that worked for an appliance or housewares company indicated that their company had delayed or outright canceled a new product. This compares with 45% of those who worked in other food-related industries.

Why cancel or delay? The biggest reason for respondents was lower revenue/shrinking business, with over four in ten (43%) staying this was a reason. Another big reason (respondents were allowed to pick more than one contributing factor) was the impact of COVID on potential customers (40%), while another factor was COVID-related business disruption (38%).

Other reasons stated by at least two startups in the appliance space was lost funding rounds as investors grew skittish due to the impact of COVID-19.

The aggregate data tells a story of an appliance industry that has been hit hard, but differently than restaurants and other food-related businesses. How so? Perhaps more so than non-hardware businesses, appliances, and housewares companies often plan for revenue in the coming year or years with new products that, if canceled, will undoubtedly impact their outlook. New products often take years to bring to market, and the reality is the cancellation of a future product very likely changes the outlook of the company for years.

But it’s even bigger than that. New products often represent a company’s future vision for itself. Not to be too grandiose, but in some ways canceling a product is equivalent to a company canceling or delaying a vision of their future selves.

Not that these companies shouldn’t have shifted strategies. The reality is the landscape is going to be different. Consumers will have less money. The way they buy food and how they consume food is (and already has) changed. To not change how your company navigates a landscape where the map is suddenly much different would be a breach of your fiduciary duties as a company executive.

But it’s still worth trying to understand the long-term impacts of these many altered product roadmaps. To do that, it’s worth looking at what types of products were canceled or delayed.

The table below shows some of the products listed by the respondents:

Table 1: What type of product or service did you delay or cancel due to COVID-19?

As you can see, many responses were fairly generic (“kitchen appliances” or “home appliances”). Others were more granular (“braising pan”, “beverage dispenser” or “smart garden appliance”).  Others spoke to more services-related products related to the appliance or houseware industry (“SaaS service” or “Residential kitchen designs”).

But what is most telling, to me at least, is how the language speaks to how these companies are canceling what is next. One respondent said their company is canceling a “new generation of large home appliances”. Another “postponed next version of automation product .” A third cut “new technology and product-related R&D.”

Again, we’re traversing a new world. Product roadmap adjustments are required. But I can’t help but wonder how much innovative work and progress was lost due to COVID-19. In the coming weeks, I’ll continue to evaluate how the reshaped appliance industry landscape will look and what I expect kitchen tech and food-related innovation efforts will look like as we emerge on the other side.  

Quick Thoughts

Chickens Are Hot

I wrote a couple weeks ago about how smart garden equipment was seeing a massive surge as consumers. In that post, I also mentioned that interest in backyard chicken farming was also on the rise, no doubt due to the same inclinations that led people to start buying seeds and developing plants for backyard gardens at a record rate over the past month or two. 

But the sheer jump in interest in chicken-farming related products on Amazon is worth looking at. As show in the graphic below, Amazon-related searches for backyard chicken farming related products has most definitely shot through the roof. Chick supplies? Up eight-fold. Chick starter kit? Six-fold. Interest in chick coops has tripled. 

I don’t think we’ll necessarily see tens of millions of chicken farmers, but I would definitely say the pandemic has meant chicken-farming has jumped the chasm from hipster hobby to a broader swath of the population concerned about their own food supply in what has been revealed to be, perhaps more so than they thought, a somewhat fragile food supply chain. 

As I wrote last month, consumers are thinking about food sovereignty, many for the first time in their lives, and so I expect at-home food production to continue to be a big trend going forward. 

Meal Kits 2.0?

It’s pretty easy to diagnose the reason for the demise of first-generation meal kits at this point: They were expensive and oftentimes required a lot of work for people who, at the end of the day, wanted to get food on the table at, yes, the end of the day.

But in some ways, I think the meal kit may be making a come back in products like that from Omsom, a meal-starter-by-mail service that allows you to essentially cook authentic Asian cuisine with little to no previous experience. In a way, it’s similar to the vision that ChefSteps had with their Joule-ready sauces, which I thought (and still do) think is a good idea before it became a victim of ChefSteps company-specific financial problems.

I also like Yo-Kai’s meal kit concept, even though it’s slightly different from Omsom in that the product provides the entire meal (including proteins). As you can guess by now, I love Asian food, and while I think Asian food meal kits probably are just better because Asian food is better (sorry not sorry), I think it’s more about not only being convenient and making life easier, but it’s also tapping into food passions. I’m going to be more passionate about an Asian food-by-mail offering than a more generic offering from the likes of Blue Apron or Plated.  I also like the flexibility that greater and longer shelf-stability provides me (like with Omsom), which was always a problem with Blue Apron, which always felt like a race-against-the-clock for me. 

Bye-bye, Buffet! A Look at Restaurant Reopening Guidelines Across the U.S.

With states slowly lifting restrictions on restaurants, some trends are emerging that give us a hint at what most dining rooms will look like going forward.

Some of these guidelines, like those around dining room occupancy and the banning of buffets, are what we expected. Others, like Washington State’s requirement that restaurants keep logs of customers’ names and contact info, took me by surprise and might also be harder to enforce. And still others, like California, are putting a different spin on some of the standard guidelines (more below).

For pretty much everyone, increased sanitation procedures, the wearing of face masks, and mandatory temperature checks for staff will be required for restaurants moving forward. Social distancing measures in the dining room will be the norm, too, and a number of operational changes are recommended by different states for keeping space between people. 

Here’s a quick rundown of some common trends we’re seeing across states that have reopened or are planning to in the near future: 

Reduced occupancy. Gone are the days of crammed dining rooms and trying to pack and turn as many tables as possible. Some states, like Indiana, are requiring restaurants to open at 50 percent reduced capacity. For others, that number is as low as 25 percent. California, in particular, hasn’t designated a specific percentage, but will instead determine each individual restaurant’s occupancy “based on its size.”

Reduced party sizes. Planning to celebrate your birthday with a big group of friends at your favorite restaurant? You can’t. Most states are restricting the size of dining parties to less than 10 people (Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia), and in more cases (Mississippi, New Hampshire) six or fewer. For those who want to dine with 15 of their closest friends, you may have to go virtual for the foreseeable future.

No bars. Very few states have announced any guidance around reopening bars, and many have gone as far as to say that bar areas of restaurants must remain closed for now. However, some states, like New Hampshire, are allowing temporary delivery of alcohol when it’s ordered with delivery or takeout meals. Texans, in particular, are hoping this trend continues forever.

Prioritize to-go orders. “Where practicable, take-out and curbside pick-up services should be prioritized over dine-in services,” reads Georgia’s restaurant reopening guidelines. Arizona’s (rather loose) guidelines note that restaurants should “Continue to provide options for delivery or curbside service even if a location offers dine-in.” Most other states’ guidelines have some language around encouraging takeout, delivery, curbside, and drive-thru orders. That makes the National Restaurant Association’s 2019 prediction of off-premises driving the bulk of restaurant sales in future more relevant than ever.

Reservations (should be) required. Most states are encouraging restaurants to require reservations. It’s unclear how serious this measure will be enforced. That said, with even massive QSR chains now testing reservations platforms, it’s likely most casual-dining establishments we previously walked into will require reservations made ahead of time in order to manage capacity.

Order ahead and contactless payment options. Across the states that are reopening or planning to, contactless payment options and the ability to order meals ahead is highly encouraged. This is good news for restaurant tech companies everywhere, which are madly pedaling those technologies in the hopes of remaining relevant to the front of house.

Bye bye, buffet. This one’s a no-brainer, and it’s also not a recommendation. Arkansas says they are “prohibited.” Georgia restaurants must “discontinue the use of salad bars and buffets.” 

The next steps in this reopening process will be restaurants trying out these procedures, technologies, and operational changes. It’s too soon to tell which ones will be easy to implement, which ones will be a nightmare (hi, customer logs), and if the need for new ones will arise as dining rooms reopen. Expect at least several weeks of trial and error, unexpected challenges, expected challenges, and pleasant surprises as more states reopen and the industry moves forward.

Restaurants Re-Opening in Washington State Required to Keep a Daily Log of Every Customer

Washington state Governor Jay Inslee yesterday released the rules restaurants must follow if they want to re-open for dine-in service. Among the new requirements, restaurants must keep a daily log of all customers’ names and contact information for contact tracing purposes related to the novel coronavirus.

The new regulations are part of the Phase 2 re-opening plan for counties in the state that have met certain COVID-19 case-related criteria. So far, eight counties in Washington have qualified.

Inslee released a 13-point document outlining new procedures restaurants in the state must follow, including:

  • No bar seating
  • No parties or tables bigger than five guests
  • Only 50 percent capacity for both indoor and outdoor seating
  • Tables must be six feet apart
  • No buffets or salad bars

Additionally businesses are “strongly encouraged to require their customers to use cloth face coverings when interacting with their staff.” And though requiring staff to wear facemasks isn’t listed in the 13 points, “Cloth facial coverings must be worn by every employee not working alone on the jobsite unless their exposure dictates a higher level of protection under Department of Labor & Industries safety and health rules and guidance.”

The requirements listed above aren’t that surprising for anyone who’s been following the restaurant industry in the time of COVID-19. All these rules seem to be pretty standard for any dining room re-opening during this pandemic. The one bit that is extra is this rule:

If the establishment offers table service, create a daily log of all customers and maintain that daily log for 30 days, including telephone/email contact information, and time in. This will facilitate any contact tracing that might need to occur.

Washington isn’t the only place with this customer log requirement, Maine has something similar, as do the cities of New Orleans and Austin.

The first question that comes to mind is exactly how restaurants will go about doing this. Granted, there will be fewer people in a restaurant at any given time, but restaurants will need to implement protocols for getting the names and spellings (and contact info!) of every single member of your party or family (even the kiddos) at some point before or during your meal.

Keeping a database of customers seems like a prudent step towards stemming and second wave of the virus. But prudent isn’t necessarily the word I’d use to describe large swaths of our population right now. It’s not hard to see this issue becoming politically divisive for the protest set who might see this as treading on their freedoms.

If these types of daily log requirements spread, it’s not hard to imagine that restaurant software providers will offer it as an add-on to their existing service. As we’ve written before, companies like Toast are scrambling to demonstrate their value to cash-strapped restaurants just trying to survive.

Of course the bigger, more existential question for the restaurant industry right now is whether people will go to restaurants like they did before. If fear of the virus doesn’t keep customers away on its own, will facemasks and handing over personal information?

Recipes for Relief Sells Professional Chef’s Recipes to Quarantined Home Cooks

Though quarantine is forcing most of us to become more dedicated home cooks, few are making fancy, restaurant-worthy dishes every night. But that might change soon.

Recipes for Relief is a website where famous chefs and mixologists post recipes for meals and drinks. Each recipe features a title, the name of the chef who created it, and a short description. You can choose to purchase the recipe for $2, $5, or $10. All of the funds go directly back to the chefs or mixologists. 

The initiative grew out of meez, a recipe management tool that allows professional chefs and mixologists to digitize their recipes, make edits, scale it up/down to feed various amounts of diners, and share them with team members. Meez is currently in beta testing mode and was preparing to launch back when quarantine forced restaurants to shut their dining rooms. Since then, meez has pivoted to share the recipes with folks that are outside the professional kitchen — home cooks.

Recipes for Relief kicked off in mid-April and currently includes around 80 recipes from 20 chefs. I connected with Francine Lee, who does business development for meez, via phone to learn more about why the company decided to start Recipes for Relief. “Other than takeout and delivery, plus government aid, there’s no way to generate revenue for restaurants right now,” Lee told me. “We thought, ‘What can we do?'”

As a quarantined person who loves to cook, of course I had to give Recipes for Relief a try. I added two recipes to my cart that looked both delicious and achievable: Miso Biscotti and Cauliflower Mac and Cheese. Within 24 hours I got an email with a link to my meez account, which had the two recipes plus a dozen bonus ones. From my initial perusing, the recipes all seemed relatively easy to make and featured ingredients that the average person could actually find at a store.

Lee told me the company has also worked with the chefs to edit the recipes to make them doable for non-professionals — using more basic techniques, ubiquitous appliances, etc. “There’s also a lot of cool tips and tricks that happen in a professional kitchen that could be insightful for a home cook,” she told me. Recipes for Relief is also gathering data on what types of recipes people are buying most to curate their new offerings.

I was hesitant about the portion sizes of the recipes. Chefs obviously work on a much larger scale than home cooks. But meez has solved this problem by offering capabilities to scale the recipes (1/2x, 2x, 4x, etc) to accommodate any number of people. You can also manually enter the amount of any ingredient you have (e.g., 1 cup of cider vinegar) and all the other ingredients will adjust accordingly. You can even ask chefs about ingredient swaps in the comments. 

According to Lee, the conversions are actually one of the key selling points for both meez and Recipes for Relief. That could be especially useful in our quarantine kitchens, when we’re forced to work with what we have more than ever before. 

Recipes for Relief’s interface still needs some polishing. There were several grammatical errors and some of the instructions lacked detail. I’d also like allergy and dietary restrictions listed (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free) clearly on the recipes. If meez decides to add a permanent tool targeting home cooks, not restauranteurs, these changes could make it a lot more useful.

As someone who’s worked in a restaurant and knows how complicated recipes not developed for home chefs can be, I’d normally be skeptical of tackling a restaurant recipe at home. But now, with time on my hands and a hankering for a physical project, there’s no better time to try my hand at a complicated recipe — especially if those recipes are also helping to support restaurants.

California Launches Meal Delivery Program to Feed Seniors and Aid Restaurants

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Friday the “Restaurants Deliver: Home Meals for Seniors” program, aimed at feeding vulnerable senior citizens while simultaneously giving more business to restaurants and their workers.

The meal delivery program, which is in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has two purposes, according to the state of California website:

  1. Help older and other adults at high risk from COVID-19 to stay home and stay healthy by delivering three nutritious meals a day, and
  2. Provide essential economic stimulus to local businesses and workers struggling to stay afloat during the COVID crisis.

The program is effective immediately. It will reimburse participating restaurants for three meals per day: up to $16 for breakfast, $17 for lunch, and $28 for dinner.  

Gov. Newsom noted in a press conference at the end of last week that the program is aimed specifically at independent restaurants that are struggling or that have been forced to close because of the pandemic. “We want to get a lot of independent restaurants up and running again,” he said.

Participating restaurants will be selected by local governments. Their meals must adhere to certain nutritional guidelines and, ideally, use locally sourced ingredients.

Across the U.S. restaurant transactions are down and at least 3 percent of restaurants have permanently closed their doors. Those that remain open are exploring other lines of business in order to survive and keep at least some staff employed. Some restaurants are selling groceries. Others have pivoted entirely away from food and are paying employees to sew masks.

The program is the first in the U.S. dedicated specifically to senior citizens impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. World Central Kitchen has a similar initiative in place in the U.S. and is working with restaurants to deliver meals to both seniors and communities in need.

California’s program will serve millions of seniors living in isolation at this time. Those interested can enter their location at 211.org to see if they qualify.

DoorDash’s New Virtual Backdrops Let You, Uhhh, Pretend You’re Eating at Chili’s on a Video Call

Look, I’m going to level with you. DoorDash’s new, downloadable virtual backgrounds are silly. Dumb even. They are a shallow marketing ploy that allow you to “dine out” at restaurants like Chili’s while sitting in front of your screen on a video chat. And honestly… I can’t get too riled up about it because ultimately they are harmless and if it brightens up someone’s socially distanced lunch, great.

DoorDash announced the program today via email. It invites people to visit the delivery company’s Lunchroom page. From there you pick your restaurant background image from the likes of McDonald’s, The Cheesecake Factory, Chili’s Grill & Bar, Panera Bread, Buffalo Wild Wings, Outback Steakhouse, Cracker Barrel, Baskin-Robbins, Auntie Anne’s, NYC restaurant Roberta’s, and download it. Follow the instructions to upload the background to your virtual video platform of choice and voila! You aren’t in your cramped apartment, you’re in a completely empty and motionless Panera!

Evidently some of the restaurants are “sharing their in-room playlists to recreate the energy they typically have in stores.” Because what you want is the music played at a Buffalo Wild Wings blasting through your speakers for that extra bit of verisimilitude. There will also be some Snapchat integration with custom filters arriving soon, so be on the lookout for that. #blessed #livinginthefuture

Sure, I’m making a little bit of fun of this whole endeavor. I mean, the DoorDash and selected restaurant’s logos each appear in your virtual backdrop. It seems a little crass to use the fact that people are sheltering in place to do a little free advertising.

This is by far not the worst marketing campaign that we’ve reported on here at The Spoon. DoorDash’s virtual backdrop sit somewhere between the actual survival utility of Pringle’s solar hot dog cooker and the sheer stupidity of Oscar Mayer’s Bacoin cryptocurrency.

But as noted above, if this little bit of something makes your next video chat in an endless series of video chats more bearable, then by all means, download away. There are way more important things to get riled up about.

COVID-19 Summit: Restaurant Owners Need to Act on the Paycheck Protection Program Now

Struggling restaurant operators in this country have a lot to worry about right now. And not to add one more thing to that list, but if you are a struggling restaurant owner, you need to stop what you’re doing and go learn about the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) that was put into place as part of the federal response to the chaos the COVID-19 pandemic is causing.

Don’t believe me? Then listen to Ryan Palmer, a lawyer and partner at Lathrop GPM who specializes in restaurant law. He joined us as a featured speaker during our COVID-19 Virtual Strategy Summit today and had a lot of great advice for restaurant owners trying to weather this storm.

Paramount among that advice was the need to learn about the PPP, a loan program devised to help small businesses keep workers employed. These are loans that are made by your lender (not the Small Business Administration), but you need to act quickly to get one. There’s $349 billion dollars for relief in there but when it’s gone, it’s gone. So if you are looking for federal relief you need to get your application in now.

In addition to being fast, restaurant owners need to be smart. As Palmer explained, the whole situation is very fluid and changing by the day. It would behoove people to call up their lawyer to help them navigate all of the ins and out of the program.

You can also use your lawyer to help you negotiate new terms in contracts that pre-corona were probably off the table. Palmer said a good place to start would be with your landlord because, as he said, “A landlord wants tenants in its spaces and a tenant wants to be in the space.” The landlord may want to keep that space occupied instead of having the space go dark or need to be re-rented and therefore be more flexible in terms of when rent is paid, etc. If you’re a franchise, Palmer said you can talk with your franchisor about continuing fees and advertising fees.

Another suggestion from Palmer, which is actually pretty evergreen, is to check your insurance. As restaurants are pivoting to delivery or even curbside pickup, make sure that your business and employees are properly covered. As a good follow up, you should also check your local ordinances and lease to see what types of conveniences (drive-up window, curbside drop off, etc.) that you can actually provide for your customers.

The whole chat was actually very illuminating and filled with solid, boots-on-the-ground type advice; you should watch the whole thing (select Legal Considerations & Strategies for Restaurant Operators During COVID-19 from the drop down menu in the upper right of the embedded player below). We may not know what the long-term effects of COVID-19 will be on the restaurant industry, but learning about the PPP is something every restaurant owner should be doing right now.

You can watch the full session with Ryan Palmer below or check it out on Crowdcast.

The Spoon's COVID-19 Summit: Ryan Palmer on Financial Relief For Restaurants During COVID-19 Crisis