Food & Beverage

QSRs: 'Cleanliness is the new ambiance'

Coming clean takes on a whole new meaning for QSRs in the time of COVID-19.

Image: iStock

July 20, 2020 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

It's hardly fathomable that the quicksand that the restaurant industry has been mired in since March seems to be both deepening and widening with every new COVID-19 case report, but that is the landscape operators find themselves trying to navigate. That continued drag against operations, revenues and profits are, according to a series of reports, challenging restaurant leaders at every turn.

"Cleanliness is the new ambiance," according to an executive ffrom Black Box Intelligence. How that translates to actual operations at the store level, showed up in the company's poll of nearly 300 restaurant operators on current pandemic measures, including that of those surveyed:

• 96% require masks on restaurant staff.
• 77% take employee temperatures pre-shift.
• 71% mandate gloves for all employees.
• 57% are using plexiglass barriers, more at limited-service brands.

Between this April and June, Black Box also reported that net consumer sentiment for "clean" leaped forward nearly 20 points. Online, brands are and have been flocking to social advocacy efforts, like all those pizzas to health care workers.

The good news is that and other industry efforts is paying off, with the positive public sentiment and online mentions around subjects like food and service improving significantly since May. In fact, Black Box also relayed that year-over-year growth is now being seen in this area.

For the week that ended July 4, however, comp sales worsened by almost 2 percentage points industry-wide. Independence Day typically brings some drop-off in restaurant sales in the neighborhood of 5%-6% in average weekly sales dollars per restaurant. But this year, that drop was more like 9%, perhaps belying consumers' continued and even growing reticence about eating out over home barbecues and meals as COVID-19 rates increase.

The better news is that at least for limited-service concepts, sales are getting better as more guests shift to off-premise orders. In fact, the quick-service sector achieved its 10th consecutive week of strong positive comp sales growth and also posted its second-best week in more than two years, based on year-over-year comp sales growth.

Black Box Intelligence did not find much positive sentiment about the immediate road ahead among restaurant leaders, with two of every three operators and executives saying they expect things to get worse for the industry over the next three months.

About S.A. Whitehead

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Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.