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Restaurants focused on delivery, to-go during Coronavirus pandemic
Although Creator, a burger joint in San Francisco that doesn't need humans to cook its burgers, the restaurant has gone a step further to protect guests and employees from spreading the illness. It’s engineered a sealed transfer chamber to isolate restaurant operations from outside air with self-sanitizing takeout-window conveyor
March 16, 2020 by Cherryh Cansler — Editor, FastCasual.com
As restaurants around the United States are closing in an effort to stop the spread of the Coronavirus, they’re also trying to keep their businesses alive by focusing on different service models.
Chipotle is offering free delivery until the end of the month, for example, and Dickey’s has added contactless delivery. Starbucks, New York City’s Just Salad and Flint, Michigan-based Halo Burgers have closed their dine-in areas, opting for delivery and carry-out only services.
After all, the industry employs 15 million Americans, and with several states, including California, New York, Washington and Illinois barring restaurants from serving in-store guests, restaurant workers all over the country are desperate to work.
“More than 1,000 employees and families depend on Just Salad as an employer,” founder and CEO Nick Kenner said in an email to FastCasual. "As we see more orders come in through our digital channels, these measures will help minimize impacts to their work schedules and maximize their safety. We are also providing an additional free meal to employees and their families, should their work schedules become impacted by the COVID-19 situation.”
'Creating' a safe space
Creator, a burger joint in San Francisco that doesn't need humans to cook its burgers, has gone a step further to protect guests and employees from spreading the illness. It’s engineered a sealed transfer chamber to isolate restaurant operations from outside air with self-sanitizing takeout-window conveyor.
“We are temporarily offering delivery and takeout only through a sealed transfer chamber — no guests will enter the restaurant,” according to an email to FastCasual.
Creator, the only restaurant to have fully automated the production of a major segment of food, requires fewer points of human contact with food than other processes of burger-making, Its robot, for example, prepares the burger inside a transparent containment box, which includes slicing the bun, tomatoes, onions and pickles while grinding and shaping meat into patties and griddling them. All refrigeration and cooking processes are under the watch of a computer-controlled system. Burgers are made inside a takeout box and never touched by staff, according to the company, which packs all delivery meals into a hermetically sealed double-bag system via a heat sealer, sealing meals from the air.
The sealed window and pressure system
The company's transfer chamber protects the inside of the restaurant from outside air, yet still allows employees to transport completed meals to delivery workers, uses a positive pressure system combined with a self-sanitizing conveyor, according to the company.
No one other than Creator staff can enter the inside of the restaurant.
"We expect that this will exponentially decrease the likelihood that one of our staff members falls ill from their work," a spokesperson told FastCasual. "Additionally, we have removed all tables and chairs from the outside of the store to prevent people from congregating or lingering. Guests can place their orders through this sealed window intercom system. "
Biosafety-inspired design and operations
Although by sealing off the store to the outside world and producing food within the robot’s enclosure, the chain already has better control, it has taken other measures to stay clean in the era of COVID-19. They include:
- Inspired by Biosafety Level 1 practices, all individuals inside the restaurant wear personal protective equipment including gloves, masks, and hairnets. Masks are of the type meant to screen their exhaled breath (not N95s with exhale ports, meant to screen their inhaled breath).
- Staff are encouraged to self-check for symptoms. Any employees exhibiting cold or flu-like symptoms will be asked to stay home and will receive paid sick leave.
- All surfaces and door handles are regularly disinfected and wiped down.
- Extended sick leave and more policies to protect our workers and guests.
Read all coronavirus coverage on FastCasual
About Cherryh Cansler
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