As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe last year, we had already begun the process of reconfiguring certain aspects of our business model at Boston’s Pizza Restaurant and Sports Bar franchise.
However, the pandemic added an unforeseen incentive to push forward in two key areas: off-premises dining and restaurant design.
While we’re just getting started, we’ve come a long way in optimizing our flexibility, convenience and operations to adapt to the unprecedented changes in 2020 and beyond.
A Proactive Approach to Off-Premises Dining
When the pandemic first hit in March of 2020, many restaurants began scrambling to evaluate the restrictions that were then in effect in their area.
Perhaps one of the most important steps the restaurant industry had to take to persevere through the pandemic was switching to mobile and online ordering options. We took a proactive approach, as we had only had a handful of restaurants onboarded to our online ordering platform at that time. We quickly focused our efforts on expanding online ordering throughout the rest of our restaurants.
This required a substantial amount of integration — between ensuring the menu was properly curated to ensure quality and balance the labor, online orders were effectively reaching our point-of-sale system and that our process accurately reflected location-specific characteristics like hours of operation, lead times and kitchen stations.
Within the next few months, we took these efforts a step further by sending out loyalty offers specific to those who used our online ordering platform. These offers helped encourage more of our customers to do so and ultimately helped drive the growth of online ordering throughout our restaurants. Additionally, we adapted our menu by adding non-alcoholic beverages, unique takeout bundles, family-sized meals, pizza kits and take-and-bake meals. Online ordering is now at the forefront of all of our off-premises marketing to encourage adoption of our owned platform, which is more profitable to our restaurants than leveraging third-party delivery.
During the summer of 2020, our off-premises orders represented almost our entire percentage of sales, with most of them deriving from call-in orders. Our operations team identified an opportunity to train our front-of-house teams to push guests towards online ordering to save time for our team members working the phones and to ensure better order accuracy, to take payment and to leverage our loyalty program.
In addition to launching our online ordering platform, we quickly instituted contactless processes to protect all of our guests and team members. From curbside pickup to delivery, we worked hard to ensure our system was fully integrated and as efficient as possible for both our customers and team members to use.
These new technological updates not only created a more efficient process internally, but it did wonders for our sales. Throughout the year, we more than doubled our takeout business.
Currently, we are exploring the idea of implementing virtual concepts and ghost kitchens. The advantages of ghost kitchens are numerous, as they would alleviate some of the pressure on our full-services restaurants to balance the substantial number of off-premises orders while providing superior service to dine-in guests. These would also provide our owners with an additional stream of revenue, without having to drastically change menu options or ingredients.
A New, More Flexible Concept
If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that the best way to remain strong through economic turmoil is to be flexible. We wanted to give our brand a forward-thinking perspective to maintain its progression, no matter what may come our way.
Just like the pandemic pushed for a faster adaptation of mobile ordering options, it also kick-started a concept that we’ve had in development for the past two years. Over time, we realized that more customers are more willing to sit with their family in the bar area, so we decided to look at what we could do to make the most of less space.
We believe that between off-premises dining and catering, a larger percentage of revenue will be generated outside our four walls. This justifies the need to ensure we have a smaller, more nimble and efficient prototype for guests that choose to dine with us, while at the same time ensuring that we can facilitate and manage the off-premises business.
That’s when we came up with a new prototype requiring a lower investment but added more flexibility and inclusion. This innovative footprint is 30 percent smaller than our pre-COVID prototypes. It will help drive our brand growth and lead the way for our full-service restaurant to expand, even without a 7,000 sq. ft. space. The smaller, less expensive, more efficient kitchen will help ensure we can fit into nearly any second-generation conversion space as well.
Facilitating Partnerships
This new, smaller concept is best demonstrated in our upcoming opening in Yuma, AZ. This Boston’s franchise restaurant will be located within a Marriott hotel, serving as the lobby bar, hotel restaurant, breakfast spot, poolside service and takeout option for hotel guests.
Our partnerships with Marriott and Holiday Inn properties will also allow Boston’s to offer an all-inclusive experience for special occasions. For example, the Yuma location will offer banquet event catering for groups of any size on the hotel property. We will even be offering unique menu options for different occasions – both formal and informal.
Looking Ahead
In 2020, we not only managed to stay afloat, but our franchise concept grew throughout the pandemic. In fact, we experienced a 20 percent increase in new Boston’s restaurants, opening four new locations. This year, we’re set to open five more in:
- Pooler, GA
- Yuma, AZ
- Shreveport, LA
- Fort Worth, TX
- Denver, CO
Eighty percent of our openings are planned to be non-traditional locations, such as those inside of or adjacent to hotels. For our franchisees, this means a reduced investment, a balanced ROI, and the option to open a Boston’s in much smaller spaces that had not previously been available.
Considering our investments in technology, increased profitability, efficiency, flexibility and continuous innovation, our franchise concept is an attractive opportunity for franchisees. Following all these pandemic-driven adaptations, our brand is on track to double in size within the next 3 years.
Want to learn more about how you can be a part of our next phase of growth? Visit www.ownabostons.com for more information!