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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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I’m a Restaurateur and Coronavirus Forced Me to Rethink My Business Plan

Increasing takeout is just one of the changes Martha Hoover has had to consider in light of the new coronavirus. | Darryl Brooks/Shutterstock

Indiana restaurateur Martha Hoover, who oversees 12 restaurants and more than 400 employees, on making decisions in a constantly changing environment

Since COVID-19 reached the United States, restaurateurs have been forced to decide for themselves how to keep their businesses afloat amid changing mandates. In some places, restaurants are limited to contactless delivery, in others takeout is still okay, and still other cities are keeping dining rooms open.

In Indiana, where Martha Hoover has 12 restaurants with Patachou restaurant group, the current recommendation is that people “stay at home,” which is not quite an order to shelter in place. “It was a very confused message from the governor’s office that needed remarkable clarification,” Hoover says. And in the week since receiving that message on March 16, Hoover has closed the dining rooms of 11 of her restaurants, pivoted one — Napolese Pizzeria — to carryout only, and at one point, even entertained the idea of opening a completely new takeout pop-up called Apocalypse Burger. Eater talked to Hoover about making those decisions as the head of a 400-person company, in a near constantly changing environment.

On reacting quickly:

“It just so happened that we have somebody on my team who was taking pre-doctoral classes at Harvard in risk management, and we were able to put a team and playbook together very quickly. We did that on March 10 and 11. We went through a variety of scenarios that were truly ahead of what the governor was mandating. We had enough control in our own ecosystem so we were not merely reacting to what we were hearing, but we were able to do some planning ahead of mandated closures.

“At the beginning of March when everyone’s awareness level regarding COVID was heightened, we enhanced all of our external messaging, making sure that customers knew they could trust us to do the right thing with our sanitation and food safety. We then enhanced all our internal operations, our protocol regarding handwashing, glove use, deep cleaning, all that. It became obvious to me on Sunday, March 15, ahead of the governor’s call that Monday [that a mandate was coming]. So I made the decision that we would close the minute there was a mandate.”

On closing 11 restaurants:

“Closing a restaurant is not as easy as turning off the lights and locking the door. We went into true triage mode. We have 12 locations, so that meant organizing an incredible team to execute a plan. Firstly, we needed to do inventories: all the serve-by dates of the perishable product, product that was quasi perishable, product that was shelf stable, product that could remain. Then we took it all to a central location where we re-inventoried, evaluated, packed it up, figured out what to do with it. And then we of course had teams go back into each of our locations to do deep cleaning and shut off gas and utilities.

“Then the admin part of our company went into their triage mode: We were delivering messages in person to people about layoffs, and giving them resources that included help filling out unemployment applications. But there’s a lot more to telling people they’re laid off than [that]. We divided food and made meal packages for anyone in our company who could come to our commissary kitchen and pick up. We served over 125 people and families with those items. One of our vendors very graciously donated pasta and pasta sauces. So we had items to divvy up that would give people some food security, and we’re doing that again this week.

“Six years ago we established what we called the PEER fund. That stands for the Patachou Employee Emergency Relief fund. It is run by employees, not by me, and the whole purpose of the fund has been to help employees in their times of great financial need when their security systems cannot serve them. One hundred percent of the proceeds from our Napolese carryout operation go into the PEER fund, and that’s what we’re using to help people pay the rent, be able to buy food. We prioritized that we would help as much as financially possible with their shelter, food, and medical needs.”

On adapting business models:

“We really believe that the restaurant world will be impacted for a long period of time. Consumer confidence will not be what it was a year ago; we have to be remarkably reactive and strategic in how we are going to reopen. We also know from looking at this process that we were very top heavy with salaried people. As much as we do for our people in terms of providing livable, above-survivor wages, doing our company-matched 401k, providing health insurance and the PEER fund and a robust and actively used [Employee Assistance Program] for every team member — beyond all that, we were not offering sick leave or personal time off for hourly people. That is now a priority for us, so we are looking at how we can alter our business model and reduce our salary load so that we can not put money in our bank — in other words, not save — so that we can put money towards programs that benefit our hourly workers.

“We also know that delivery will be the new norm. We’re in Indianapolis, which has completely different demographics than more densely populated cities. Anything we can do to increase the bottom line by increasing our non-brick-and-mortar opportunities is where our business model is going. I don’t think we’re revolutionary; we’re on an island thinking about what we are going to do post-COVID and how we’re going to operate differently. We will 100 percent use data way more effectively than we have in the past.”

On coming up with new ideas in the middle of a pandemic:

“My family decided to have a Zoom cocktail hour on Sunday, and out of that came the idea for Apocalypse Burger. My son-in-law, who is an extremely gifted artist, came up with both the name and the logo and by 10:30 at night, I filed for trademark protection and started working on a menu, pulled together a team within my company and said, ‘Hey, this is what I’m thinking. Let’s do a pop up.’ Everyone was very excited. I think it coincides with people’s need to know there is a future and we’re not just all stuck, because so many people feel very paralyzed by this.

“People really got excited that we were doing something forward thinking, that would employ people, and get people to feel like they were serving their Patachou family. We were going to take the proceeds and funnel them to the PEER fund. But today [Tuesday] when I re-read the governor’s order, I felt uncomfortable asking staff to come out and further put themselves and their families at potential risk.

“We decided to pivot rapidly. We all love the idea of Apocalypse Burger. We are going to execute on it, but this gives us two or three weeks — we hope — to get the details locked in place so that when we do open post-COVID, we open a really sound, well-thought-out business. We’re doing it the way we would be doing it if we were opening a real restaurant, the only difference will be that Apocalypse Burger will open, at least initially, as a carryout and delivery operation only. The pivot was born out of our need to really consider where staff is right now and weigh that against the greater good and what the governor has asked of us.”

On Patachou’s future:

“We’re starting mid next week to put together a reopening strategy. But of course we’re missing a huge piece of information, which is when we will be able to safely reopen. We believe it’s not going to be a Kimmy Schmidt moment where people come out of the basement and the sky is blue and life returns to normal. We will need to stagger our openings and stagger in staff so that we can best utilize our resources.”

On what she couldn’t have planned for:

“I could not have planned for the lack of leadership at the government level. I could not have planned for the confusing and misleading statements and for the lack of general direction, which made us realize that we just had to do what we felt was truly in the best interest of three constituencies — the business, the staff, and the community. It was a balancing act.

“Obviously we weren’t prepared as a country and I don’t think our city was particularly well prepared. It’s very difficult to lead an organization when you do not have the best information at the ready. I feel like that ambiguity created a lot of panic and fear. I’m someone who truly believes in science; I’m listening to the CDC and the World Health Organization. I’m also in frequent conversation with restaurant colleagues from around the country, especially my restaurant friends in Seattle, where they had a full month head-start on us in terms of everything. I’m really listening to them and learning from their playbooks.”

On what she thinks Patachou has gotten right:

“At the beginning of 2020 we launched an open information site called PatachouPeople.com that allows anyone to look at what our benefits and practices are. That has become ground central for Patachou’s dissemination of critical information. It’s so much easier to execute on ideas when you have systems in place for distribution of information. From the feedback I have received from members of the Patachou community, people are extremely appreciative of having accurate information.

“It is not radical thinking to just do carryout and delivery. I think that restaurants — I don’t care if it’s a single-unit independent, multi-unit independent, whatever — we all need to be looking at running organizations that maximize results. And by maximizing results, I mean not just the traditional bottom line, but also for their staff and for the community. I believe restaurants will continue to be the centers of the community, but we’re now required to be thought leaders, too. This moment in time is really showing us the cracks in the restaurant industry business model, and now is the time that we have to fix them. That’s how I’m using my time off: working with key members of my team on how we can become a better organization.”

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2UiWEvy https://ift.tt/2UjR5wT

Increasing takeout is just one of the changes Martha Hoover has had to consider in light of the new coronavirus. | Darryl Brooks/Shutterstock

Indiana restaurateur Martha Hoover, who oversees 12 restaurants and more than 400 employees, on making decisions in a constantly changing environment

On reacting quickly:

On closing 11 restaurants:

On adapting business models:

On coming up with new ideas in the middle of a pandemic:

On Patachou’s future:

On what she couldn’t have planned for:

On what she thinks Patachou has gotten right:

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2UiWEvy via Blogger https://ift.tt/2Ug8RRv

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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topicprinter · 6 years

Link

The competition for talent in the startup ecosystem is intense, and as an early-stage startup, you’re already at a disadvantage.You likely can't compete with the benefits at more mature companies, offer the clout that comes with a well-established brand or even guarantee a stable future for the company.You do, however, have one big advantage: Good early-stage hires want to join an early-stage startup. All you have to do is know how to find them.This guide will crystalize key steps in early-stage hiring, from why someone would want to join an early-stage startup to what you should look for, and how to recruit the top talent you find. Let's start with the obvious.Why Would Anyone Want To Join An Early-Stage Startup?A mature, stable company can offer a lot — a long financial history, established product-market fit, positive growth metrics, and plan for growth.An early-stage startup will almost always be missing at least one of those things, and when you consider how risky startups already are—the University of Chicago's Booth Business School found that roughly half of startups failed to make it five years —the decision to join an early-stage company becomes extremely high risk.So why would anyone join a company where resources are scarce, compensation is modest, and the office almost definitely will not look like this. (That's the New York office of Ceros, a platform helping creators design interactive content. They also have a private pub for employees.)The decision to choose an early-stage startup comes down to motivation. Early-stage employees, overall, are driven by high-risk, high-reward opportunities — a very different motivator than you might find in a later-stage hire. Taner Halicioglu, Facebook's first engineering hire, is now rich enough to donate $75,000,000+ to UC San Diego. Early-stage hires aspire to that kind of success — even if it means risking a stable future.But it's not just financial upside that gets top talent on board. Your first hires are going to be motivated by the opportunity to work on problems that are part of your company's core. Sure, engineers at 200-person companies are still running projects, innovating and impacting the business in a real way, but at an early-stage company, new employees are involved in problems fundamental to the business. That's the kind involvement other organizations would typically keep in the C-suite.“Startups are one of the few places where you have the opportunity to step up and do jobs that are way, way, way, way outside your comfort zone,” says Tim Delisle, CEO of AI-powered data cleaning company Datalogue. “The type of (work) that people would expect from a VP of Marketing, a Head of Engineering, a Head of Data, those titles open up to you at a much younger age.”For example, an early-stage engineer can define the technology stack the rest of the company will be built on. An early marketing hire can build the brand from the ground up. For people without executive experience, early-stage startups may be their only chance to be exposed to these sorts of challenges.How To Prepare For Early-Stage OnboardingWhile there isn't a one-size-fits-all funnel for early-stage hiring, there is a general philosophy. Before you begin looking for early-stage candidates, know your needs as a company and what value you can offer to candidates. Without those guiding principles, you won't be able to effectively hire.Understanding your needs is tricky. At a later-stage company, you'll have concrete growth goals and initiatives that require new hires. At an early-stage startup, it's much less likely that you'll be able to neatly define each role, and needs will vary based on your funding, industry and unique team dynamic. “In hiring, you shouldn't start with a function, but you should start with a set of tasks and attributes,” explains Jenny Fielding, managing director at Techstars. Look for someone with the skills to function like a cofounder — the ability to take on a whole category of responsibilities and build from the ground up — but don't get bogged down with business titles.“Instead of saying, 'We need to look for people that have CFO experience,' look for what you actually need to get done. The truth is, you probably don't' need a CFO,” Fielding says. “There are probably business development people that have a great grasp of numbers that can help you with your finances. When you take those labels off, at the early stage, you have much more access to talent.”And no matter how much pressure you feel to “just get someone in,” do not rush it. There will always be bugs to fix and fires to put out, so don't lose your cool. “Hiring, especially at an early-stage company, can become reactive,” says Mariele Marki, talent and brand manager at employee-controlled payment app DailyPay. “Someone is absolutely swamped, and they need another body in the room. That puts a lot of pressure on that hiring manager to just get that help, as opposed to understanding who that best fit would be.”If you're feeling pressure, focus on crafting a compelling value proposition for future hires. It should be succinct and speak to the employee motivations laid out in the last section:Is this the candidate's chance to be an early employee at a billion-dollar company?Is the candidate going to work on problems that an executive would usually work on?Is the candidate going to be given the freedom to build?If you can answer these three questions in a single sentence, you have a pretty compelling case for why someone would want to join your team.How To Find And Vet Your First HiresTo find good early-stage hires, you'll need to lean on personal referrals and hiring platforms. In your later stages, you'll (ideally) have a strong company brand that drives huge numbers of inbound candidates, making recruiting a breeze. But right now, you almost certainly do not.We've seen from internal data that early-stage startups have the weakest conversion rates in recruiting. Even when people introduce you to prospective candidates, it's pretty uncommon for a young company to close a high percentage of the candidates it pursues. But that's okay. At this stage, a single hire can completely change your company.Sourcing will play a big part. Your personal network and those of your advisors will be a rich source for early referrals. After that, platforms like A-List and AngelList will be direct paths to leading candidates.Evaluating is just as critical. The number one thing you need to asses in candidates is their eagerness to build something. If working on hard problems and discovering new solutions isn't a primary motivator, they are not going to thrive at an early-stage startup. Dhawal Mujumdar, found of revenue intelligence platform Polymorph, tells candidates:“Hey, this is what we're are working towards. Do you really want to be part of that journey? We may not succeed. We may fail at the end of the day. Can you be proud of that enough to put that on your resume?”Plenty of talented people aren't going to fit that mold. They might make great hires down the road, but right now, they are not the people you need. Another strong evaluation tactic is staying tuned to questions candidates ask and looking out for signs that they need more structure than you can currently offer.“A red flag is a candidate asking questions, expecting that there's going to be quarterly reviews or these types of experiences that you might have at a larger company,” says Su Sanni, founder of microtransit nonprofit Dollarides and fundraising WeDidIt. “You don't have those things at a startup. You're looking for folks who are going to be self-starters...and can execute on a job without having their hands held.”Think of these first hires almost as cofounders. They should be strong at solving really fundamental problems — often with no oversight or resources — and making decisions about how your culture works.To Sell Candidates, Build A CommunityThe secret to closing the deal with your candidates is to present your company as a community. Be transparent about your vision, your passion, and your excitement for them to join. If ultimately they go in another direction, that's okay, too. Keep the relationship open, and offer whatever help you can.In 2015, Parabol cofounder Jordan Husney was looking for employee number four. Based on company pain points, he knew their next, right hire had to be a triple threat: a gifted engineer, a community builder, and a project leader.The team started its search and found an engineer who was building an open-source collaboration application. More importantly, he was documenting and promoting it as he worked, building a community around the project.“We tried to reach him via his email address and we didn't get anything back,” Husney remembers. “He has a neglected Twitter account we tried to DM, and he didn't get back. We tried leaving comments on some media pieces that he had written. He didn't get back to us. We opened an issue on his GitHub profile, and he didn't get back to us. So I wrote him an open love letter on social media, and just said, 'We like you for the following reasons.' It was so creepy that he couldn't ignore it. He wrote back very kindly, 'Okay, what's your deal?'”It turned out, the candidate was just finishing a tour with the Peace Corps and wasn't looking to join an early-stage startup. Fair enough. But instead of ending the relationship there, Husney offered references to some later-stage companies.Further down the line, and because of that relationship, the same engineer came back to Husney. He said, “Hey, I'm close to an offer, but you were really unique, and I feel like I might be making a mistake if I don't more from you. Can we talk more?”Three years later, he still works at Parabol.The lesson? Even if you don't need a new hire right now, you should always be engaging with top talent. Recruiting is about community building, and you can't build a community on an as-needed basis — you have to nurture it before you need it, and they'll be the ones who carry you into the future.link to original article: https://angel.co/talent-hacks/how-to-hire-your-first-10-employees

#/r/startups #reddit

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

Quote

Increasing takeout is just one of the changes Martha Hoover has had to consider in light of the new coronavirus. | Darryl Brooks/Shutterstock Indiana restaurateur Martha Hoover, who oversees 12 restaurants and more than 400 employees, on making decisions in a constantly changing environment Since COVID-19 reached the United States, restaurateurs have been forced to decide for themselves how to keep their businesses afloat amid changing mandates. In some places, restaurants are limited to contactless delivery, in others takeout is still okay, and still other cities are keeping dining rooms open. In Indiana, where Martha Hoover has 12 restaurants with Patachou restaurant group, the current recommendation is that people “stay at home,” which is not quite an order to shelter in place. “It was a very confused message from the governor’s office that needed remarkable clarification,” Hoover says. And in the week since receiving that message on March 16, Hoover has closed the dining rooms of 11 of her restaurants, pivoted one — Napolese Pizzeria — to carryout only, and at one point, even entertained the idea of opening a completely new takeout pop-up called Apocalypse Burger. Eater talked to Hoover about making those decisions as the head of a 400-person company, in a near constantly changing environment. On reacting quickly: “It just so happened that we have somebody on my team who was taking pre-doctoral classes at Harvard in risk management, and we were able to put a team and playbook together very quickly. We did that on March 10 and 11. We went through a variety of scenarios that were truly ahead of what the governor was mandating. We had enough control in our own ecosystem so we were not merely reacting to what we were hearing, but we were able to do some planning ahead of mandated closures. “At the beginning of March when everyone’s awareness level regarding COVID was heightened, we enhanced all of our external messaging, making sure that customers knew they could trust us to do the right thing with our sanitation and food safety. We then enhanced all our internal operations, our protocol regarding handwashing, glove use, deep cleaning, all that. It became obvious to me on Sunday, March 15, ahead of the governor’s call that Monday [that a mandate was coming]. So I made the decision that we would close the minute there was a mandate.” On closing 11 restaurants: “Closing a restaurant is not as easy as turning off the lights and locking the door. We went into true triage mode. We have 12 locations, so that meant organizing an incredible team to execute a plan. Firstly, we needed to do inventories: all the serve-by dates of the perishable product, product that was quasi perishable, product that was shelf stable, product that could remain. Then we took it all to a central location where we re-inventoried, evaluated, packed it up, figured out what to do with it. And then we of course had teams go back into each of our locations to do deep cleaning and shut off gas and utilities. “Then the admin part of our company went into their triage mode: We were delivering messages in person to people about layoffs, and giving them resources that included help filling out unemployment applications. But there’s a lot more to telling people they’re laid off than [that]. We divided food and made meal packages for anyone in our company who could come to our commissary kitchen and pick up. We served over 125 people and families with those items. One of our vendors very graciously donated pasta and pasta sauces. So we had items to divvy up that would give people some food security, and we’re doing that again this week. “Six years ago we established what we called the PEER fund. That stands for the Patachou Employee Emergency Relief fund. It is run by employees, not by me, and the whole purpose of the fund has been to help employees in their times of great financial need when their security systems cannot serve them. One hundred percent of the proceeds from our Napolese carryout operation go into the PEER fund, and that’s what we’re using to help people pay the rent, be able to buy food. We prioritized that we would help as much as financially possible with their shelter, food, and medical needs.” On adapting business models: “We really believe that the restaurant world will be impacted for a long period of time. Consumer confidence will not be what it was a year ago; we have to be remarkably reactive and strategic in how we are going to reopen. We also know from looking at this process that we were very top heavy with salaried people. As much as we do for our people in terms of providing livable, above-survivor wages, doing our company-matched 401k, providing health insurance and the PEER fund and a robust and actively used [Employee Assistance Program] for every team member — beyond all that, we were not offering sick leave or personal time off for hourly people. That is now a priority for us, so we are looking at how we can alter our business model and reduce our salary load so that we can not put money in our bank — in other words, not save — so that we can put money towards programs that benefit our hourly workers. “We also know that delivery will be the new norm. We’re in Indianapolis, which has completely different demographics than more densely populated cities. Anything we can do to increase the bottom line by increasing our non-brick-and-mortar opportunities is where our business model is going. I don’t think we’re revolutionary; we’re on an island thinking about what we are going to do post-COVID and how we’re going to operate differently. We will 100 percent use data way more effectively than we have in the past.” On coming up with new ideas in the middle of a pandemic: “My family decided to have a Zoom cocktail hour on Sunday, and out of that came the idea for Apocalypse Burger. My son-in-law, who is an extremely gifted artist, came up with both the name and the logo and by 10:30 at night, I filed for trademark protection and started working on a menu, pulled together a team within my company and said, ‘Hey, this is what I’m thinking. Let’s do a pop up.’ Everyone was very excited. I think it coincides with people’s need to know there is a future and we’re not just all stuck, because so many people feel very paralyzed by this. “People really got excited that we were doing something forward thinking, that would employ people, and get people to feel like they were serving their Patachou family. We were going to take the proceeds and funnel them to the PEER fund. But today [Tuesday] when I re-read the governor’s order, I felt uncomfortable asking staff to come out and further put themselves and their families at potential risk. “We decided to pivot rapidly. We all love the idea of Apocalypse Burger. We are going to execute on it, but this gives us two or three weeks — we hope — to get the details locked in place so that when we do open post-COVID, we open a really sound, well-thought-out business. We’re doing it the way we would be doing it if we were opening a real restaurant, the only difference will be that Apocalypse Burger will open, at least initially, as a carryout and delivery operation only. The pivot was born out of our need to really consider where staff is right now and weigh that against the greater good and what the governor has asked of us.” On Patachou’s future: “We’re starting mid next week to put together a reopening strategy. But of course we’re missing a huge piece of information, which is when we will be able to safely reopen. We believe it’s not going to be a Kimmy Schmidt moment where people come out of the basement and the sky is blue and life returns to normal. We will need to stagger our openings and stagger in staff so that we can best utilize our resources.” On what she couldn’t have planned for: “I could not have planned for the lack of leadership at the government level. I could not have planned for the confusing and misleading statements and for the lack of general direction, which made us realize that we just had to do what we felt was truly in the best interest of three constituencies — the business, the staff, and the community. It was a balancing act. “Obviously we weren’t prepared as a country and I don’t think our city was particularly well prepared. It’s very difficult to lead an organization when you do not have the best information at the ready. I feel like that ambiguity created a lot of panic and fear. I’m someone who truly believes in science; I’m listening to the CDC and the World Health Organization. I’m also in frequent conversation with restaurant colleagues from around the country, especially my restaurant friends in Seattle, where they had a full month head-start on us in terms of everything. I’m really listening to them and learning from their playbooks.” On what she thinks Patachou has gotten right: “At the beginning of 2020 we launched an open information site called PatachouPeople.com that allows anyone to look at what our benefits and practices are. That has become ground central for Patachou’s dissemination of critical information. It’s so much easier to execute on ideas when you have systems in place for distribution of information. From the feedback I have received from members of the Patachou community, people are extremely appreciative of having accurate information. “It is not radical thinking to just do carryout and delivery. I think that restaurants — I don’t care if it’s a single-unit independent, multi-unit independent, whatever — we all need to be looking at running organizations that maximize results. And by maximizing results, I mean not just the traditional bottom line, but also for their staff and for the community. I believe restaurants will continue to be the centers of the community, but we’re now required to be thought leaders, too. This moment in time is really showing us the cracks in the restaurant industry business model, and now is the time that we have to fix them. That’s how I’m using my time off: working with key members of my team on how we can become a better organization.” from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2UiWEvy

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/03/im-restaurateur-and-coronavirus-forced.html

#EasyFoodNetwork #ComfortFoodRecipes #EasyRecipes #GoodFood #BestComfortFoodRecipes #TastyFoodv

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