NEW YORK — What does a post-pandemic restaurant look like? At
Glasserie, a Mediterranean restaurant in
Brooklyn, sales are stellar, the staff
is stretched thin, and the owner is excited about technology — but only on her
terms.
اضافة اعلان
Last year, I wrote about Glasserie and how technology was both
helping and hurting it adapt in the pandemic. I checked back this week with
Sara Conklin, Glasserie’s owner, to find out how the restaurant is faring in
(fingers crossed) the early phase of
coronavirus recovery in the United States.
Glasserie’s experience is a hopeful sign that digital habits
forced on us in a crisis may help build a brighter future not only for the
corporate tech titans but also for smaller businesses.
Conklin told me that the pandemic forced her to become more tech
savvy in ways that she believes will help the restaurant in the long run. She
remains frustrated by some technology that caters to restaurants, particularly
food delivery
apps, but is thrilled about others, including smartphone software
that she plans to use for customers to pay the bill on their phones.
Those are the kinds of digital services that Conklin said will
make Glasserie more efficient and more profitable. “These are things I’d like
to keep whether there was a pandemic or not,” she said. “We want to keep
pushing ahead.”
Most of the past year, though, was all about muddling through.
Glasserie’s dining room was closed or capacity was seriously limited. It tried
to make up for lost business by opening an online minimart selling items like
bottles of wine and toilet paper. It started selling alcoholic drinks and
snacks through a new takeout window, and staff members cranked out emails to
tempt diners with meals created for eating at home.
All of those pandemic adaptations are over. As other restaurants
are reporting, people are eager to eat out again, and Glasserie is happy to
serve them. “We’re busier now than we’ve ever been in our almost 10 years of
existence,” Conklin told me. That’s even with capacity limits on indoor dining
in New York.
Conklin also said that the pandemic converted her from a skeptic
of technology for Glasserie. “I have always been resistant,” she said, not
necessarily to all technologies but to those that she believed got in the way
or ruined the atmosphere. “It didn’t feel right to me.” But now she’s excited
about technology — at least some of it.
In 2020, Glasserie had no choice but to start using more
delivery and takeout apps, including Seamless, Grubhub and DoorDash. Like other
restaurant owners, Conklin complained about what she felt were confusing terms
and high costs.
Recently, Glasserie has been using a feature from Square, which
sells digital cash registers and other technology to restaurants, to take
delivery orders directly on the restaurant’s website. Conklin uses a feature to
hand off those orders to couriers working for Postmates or DoorDash for an
additional fee.
She said this was a way for Glasserie to offer deliveries but on
the restaurant’s own website and with more control. If the kitchen is slammed,
Glasserie can temporarily pause the delivery option.
Conklin still doesn’t like costs for deliveries. She said she
didn’t really know what Glasserie paid to delivery providers, showing how
complicated the app companies’ charges were. “For me to find that out would
take me a good hour or two and some real math,” she said.
It also bothers her that Glasserie has no way to keep tabs on
delivery orders and often doesn’t know about late deliveries or botched meals
until it’s far too late to fix the problem.
But Conklin’s biggest headache isn’t technology. It’s finding
enough workers. Glasserie has advertised for staff on Craigslist and on
restaurant job boards, and has gotten in touch with former employees. It’s been
slow going.
I asked Conklin how it feels now that she and Glasserie have
shifted past emergency mode to this new phase. She said she felt optimistic and
uncertain, but mostly in a good way. “It feels very much like we are opening a
restaurant from scratch,” she said.
Read more
Business
.jpg)
.jpg)
