Article
Balance Grille, Mooyah helping industry navigate COVID-19 crisis
As the restaurant industry adjusts to the crisis that is COVID-19, leaders of two fast casual brands, Balance Grill and Mooyah, are doing their best to make lemonade out of lemons.
March 23, 2020 by Cherryh Cansler — Editor, FastCasual.com
As the restaurant industry adjusts to the crisis that is COVID-19, leaders of two fast casual brands, Balance Grill and Mooyah Burgers, Fries and Shakes, are doing their best to make lemonade out of lemons.
In an effort to unite the restaurant industry, for example, Plano, Texas based-Mooyah, is leading a Nationwide Restaurant Deep Cleaning Event calling on restaurants across the U.S. to join it after closing Monday in a deep cleaning effort. Mooyah, which is using the hashtags #RestaurantStrong and #TogetherAtHome on social media, hopes that in addition to its team posting content to highlight their sanitizing work, other restaurants across America will join together and promote their deep cleaning as well.
"Now is the time to band together as a restaurant community, and help families feel good about being able to order delivery, curbside delivery or to-go from their favorite restaurants," Mooyah President Tony Darden said in a company press release. "This is truly a movement to inspire confidence in the restaurant industry as a whole. We are encouraging all restaurants nationwide to come together and do a deep clean of their restaurants to keep families and team members safe and fed during this critical time."
Since the beginning of the outbreak, Mooyah, which has 76 locations, heightened scrutiny on already stringent personal hygiene and restaurant sanitation procedures. The stores also quickly moved to packaging all food to-go and implemented free delivery with no order minimums.
Balance Pan-Asian Grille leans in
Balance Pan-Asian Grille CEO Prakash Karamchandani has also taken a leadership role when it comes to navigating COVID-19. He's been a key influencer in how the food industry has responded to COVID-19 in the state of Ohio, which has been closely watched and is still serving as a model for states across the country. By leading the conversation through the Ohio Restaurant Association and discussing the implications with local and state government officials, Karamchandani was able to position Balance as an example of how to be a responsible restaurant in the middle of a national pandemic.
In the beginning stages of the crisis in the U.S. (March 10, 2020), Balance Grille led the way in Stage 1 with preventative measures, which were quickly and clearly communicated to all staff through internal communications channels, Karamchandani said. Customers then learned of the chain's new procedures through direct messaging on its mobile app, email communications and social media. Here's what the chain did to ensure the health and safety of its staff and customers:
- Upgraded sanitization frequency on all surfaces and changed out to fresh sanitizer at the top of every hour, when current ServSafe / Health Department Standards were every four hours). Staff used sanitizer from a single source to ensure consistency and was at the proper PPM for maximum effectiveness.
- Updated ServSafe signage was installed at all facilities regarding proper sanitization procedures as a visual reminder of these updates. The teams also stocked up on Lysol Quick-Grab Fragrance-Free sanitizing wipes at multiple points throughout our facilities to allow for quick and easy sanitization.
- Upgraded the hand-washing frequency. This was in addition to washing hands after changing gloves, exiting or re-entering into the facility. New practices implemented included a change of gloves at the top of every 30-minutes, and to wash hands in between glove changes. A video reminder of hand-washing best practices was redistributed to all staff, and ServSafe signage was posted at all hand-washing areas within the facility to serve as a visual reminder. As a visual and auditory reminder for staff, every 30 minutes a reminder/alarm was set on all of our operational iPads, to ensure this protocol was being followed.
- Installed alcohol-based sanitizers at all doorways in all facilities.
- Implemented employee sick leave and voluntary travel notification. It distributed temporary call-off procedures to all staff, requesting them not to report for work if they were facing a fever in excess of 99.1 or had any respiratory illness. The chain also requested that they did not overwhelm local health service providers in order to obtain a note to call off of work. In addition, Balance created an employee travel registry in order to keep track of all travel outside of its operating counties, including any visits to large gatherings of 100+ people, including concerts and allies, etc).
Additionally, the Balance team sprung into action to create a response and crisis management plan to include steps for Stage 2 and Stage 3 operations in case the severity of COVID-19 increased.
Four days later, on March 14, 2020, Balance communicated plans for Stage 2 of our Response and Crisis Management plan. It started offering take-out orders only effective Monday, March 16, 2020. Dining rooms were closed, and restrooms service employees only.
"We arrived at this decision as 80% of our current orders are take-out, and over 50% of our customers use our Balance Grille mobile app to place orders, Karamchandani said in an email to FastCasual. "This change enabled us to minimize contact through social distancing and still offer the best of Balance Grille to our customers. 24 hours later, our standards and policies were adopted by every other restaurant in the state of Ohio, as ordered by the Governor's office."
The swift changes allowed Balance to meet customers' needs and safety concerns without completely disrupting workflow and sales.
"By being early adapters to these COVID-19 precautions, our business was able to recover fairly quickly from the health crisis and offer our customers a sense of comfort and normalcy," Karamchandani said. "While many of our state residents are in self-quarantine and working from home unless deemed essential, we discovered many ways we could be of service to our community."
On March 20, 2020, Karamchandani announced plans to offer free food delivery to area healthcare providers where food service options were limited or non-existent.
"This includes local hospitals, emergency rooms, and intensive care units where medical professionals are working around the clock to save and protect people affected by the virus. We plan to continue to provide this service to frontline hospital employees as long as Balance can meet the required staffing and food supply demands," he said. "Fortunately, due to having a vertically-integrated aquaponics farm, most of our produce supply is self-sufficient and on a continuous growth cycle. We are not affected by an outside supplier less equipped to handle COVID-19 health protocols."
Read more about the coronavirus effect on the restaurant industry.
About Cherryh Cansler
