But what has provided convenience to the consumer hasn ’ t always been convenient for the business owner . Now that COVID-19 infection rates are down and vaccination rates are up across the Capital Region , restaurants have to decide whether to continue to offer these services adopted during the pandemic that customers have become accustomed to .
Pandemic pivots
Amanda Blackwood , president and CEO of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce , says a shift had already begun in terms of how businesses could best serve customers long before the pandemic forced California ’ s statewide shutdown in March 2020 . “ The overall cultural shift from brickand-mortar , walking in face to face , had already started to change ,” she says , referencing the shift to online shopping .
The initial shelter-in-place orders , however , increased “ clients ’ desire to do business in an online … touchless way ,” Blackwood says . “ Restaurants , like everybody else , have had to dive into having a strong digital presence , whether they wanted to or not , knowing anyway that customer mentality was already moving ” in that direction .
Curbside pickup lent itself to this shift , and in the case of Back Bistro , proved critical to retaining customers . The restaurant experienced a 32 percent decrease in business during the first year of the pandemic , according to Gail , but was able to continue because of added services — with curbside pickup , takeout and delivery at the top of the list .
“ Curbside really showed us the loyalty from our community , having people get meals delivered to their car when we , the owners , were literally running the order out to you ,” Gail says . “ It gave the customers … an appreciation for what we do .”
Selland Family Restaurants CEO Josh Nelson says that curbside pickup is here to stay , certainly with the company ’ s Selland ’ s Market-Cafes in Sacramento and El Dorado Hills and OBO ’ Italian Table & Bar in Sacramento , which were set up pre-pandemic for both dine in and takeout . ( The company ’ s fine-dining
Back Bistro in Folsom only offered upscale indoor dining , serving dishes like its steak and potatoes , before the pandemic hit .
“ I ’ m grateful that … people have adapted to curbside pickup . It ’ s been a lifeline for restaurants , as hard as things have been . It ’ s not perfect , but it ’ s there .”
Josh Nelson , CEO , Selland Family Restaurants
restaurants , The Kitchen and Ella Dining Room and Bar , were temporarily closed throughout the pandemic . The Kitchen is now open , and plans are in progress for Ella to reopen , Nelson says .)
There were , however , still challenges to implementing a full curbside system . “ We ’ re not built to do this volume of curbside pickup that we ’ ve done ,” Nelson says . “ We ’ ve had to rearrange our restaurants to accommodate it ; it ’ s clunky and a difficult task to do curbside and eats up a lot of space and takes a lot of labor . … It ’ s like running a restaurant inside a restaurant .” He says that exclusive curbside pickup is easier than when it is combined with outdoor and indoor dining .
Selland ’ s and OBO ’ also faced a significant drop in revenue in the first year of the pandemic , Nelson says , “ anywhere between 20 to 90 percent , depending on dining options ,” referring to how restrictions dictated the dining experience at any given time . One of the challenges , he says , was running a different business model every few weeks .
In addition to curbside pickup , the restaurant industry has made several other pivots , including giving diners more opportunities to eat outside when indoor occupancy decreased , with alfresco dining along normally busy streets and open shared seating for neighboring restaurants . Alfresco dining , just like curbside pickup , encourages diners to leave their house and go to the restaurant rather than having the food delivered to the customer . It keeps a part of established societal norms in place ,
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