Welcome to the whole story. You may have noticed dining out right now is different than it was before the pandemic. For one, there are fewer restaurants. An estimated 70,000 fewer since covid 19. Higher prices and sometimes added Service Charges that many restaurants say our final to keep them running. More restaurants are Offering Takeout and delivery services. Restaurant and had to adapt and evolve in order to survive. One of the establishments that didnt survive was bobby flays longtime new york restaurant got two. He close the doors days after the lockdown began and that Experience Led him to think about who made it through the pandemic and why. Over the next hour bobby flay takes us to restaurants around the country from oregon to kentucky to new york and introduces us to some of the leading chefs and experts say that dining out has changed for good. March 2020. States are shutting down restaurants. That is a sector that has switched off overnight. Like so many in the restaurant industry, chris bianca was blindsided by the totality of the pandemic. Many of our restaurants around the country are closed and many of us may not reopen. When you look at big moments like that, how do you face it, what do you do . The guy who started his pizza joint in the back of a pizza store had expanded to four restaurant in phoenix, arizona. There we go. There it is. The first time i showed up at your place, the mactre d was telling people, shut up, its four hours. I know youre used to this but thats a remarkable thing to have, people waiting on line for four hours for years and years to eat pizza all of a sudden the pandemic hits and what you guys do . Its like a movie we never could have imagined. I didnt have a strategy. We werent able to go to work or order food. No food in the Grocery Store, bigbox stores are frantically trying to make deals with these guys. By the end of march 2020, financial losses and Employee Burnout had taken a toll. Today will be the last day of limited seating in our restaurants. We never close. In retrospect would have been the smarter move. Nobody knew what to do . Nobody knew what to do. Our business was already on the ropes. My purview showed me we were running out of a very archaic system. In new york city, chef troy was equally shaken when the bottom fell out. We shut our doors and i had to quickly think of ways to recover. Business had been booming at the hotspot in the citys meatpacking neighborhood. We are here on a weekday, the place is packed. Crazy. Always. Always. Cant wait to show you some tricks. I want to see some of my favorite dishes. This is where our noodles are made, we have a rice cooker here. All of these, kimchi is the topping for everything. And the broth we make here. This goes for 16 to 18 hours. Oh my god we were doing our highest sales ever, i planned to open three more shops, we were is static, we were killing it. The pandemic hits, within a week it drops to 50 of sales and then almost 0. My heart sank. According to the National Restaurant association, 110,000 restaurants close by the end of 2020. Many of them, permanently. What about staffing . It was extremely difficult. I have my core team. We were the ones working. We cooked every single day. We were running everything with no hourly staff. Back in phoenix the Staffing Shortage forced chris to cut the hours at his for restaurants. For me to write, we are closing early tonight or we are closed today, you know, it doesnt make economic sense. We cant pay everybody and it be viable for them and us. More than three decades of restaurants were lost. We were used to the retail model but i realized we had to quickly change that to something more digital. So we partnered up with a company and basically we were making meals that people could reheat at home. A Subscription Service where people order 5 to 10 meals and it gets delivered. We were getting a check every single week. And it really helped us get through the pandemic. We had to change our entire Business Model to make that work. Now we are doing over 15,000 meals a week on that platform. What . Its now such a big part of my business and i realized its not a restaurant, it is a brand. Not only are we selling on cook unity, we are selling kimchi online, so thats how i revisited the whole model of the business. Really give that a little mix . Joy was able to reopen mok bar after two months but its not the restaurant it was before the pandemic. You dont even have counter seats. We have full service. I decided we would do Quick Service in our sales have gone up. What you put in those . Soy sauce and rice vinegar. I have over 100 employees. Right now the focus is making sure everyones mouths are fed. Chef bianca struggled with the changing times. Weve got to figure it out. We are doing sauce packets, now we are takeout restaurant. Takeout only, thats all we could do. It was busy. But busy is such not the parameter for wellness. With his Restaurant Operating at half capacity, he had no choice but to pivot. Focusing on other parts of his business. Welcome to durham. If you can create things that have some stability in your life like luckily i have a tomato business. How old is that . About 12 years. Its our little diner, paintings of my dads up on the wall. And then, he took a huge risk. We opened up in los angeles during the pandemic. We have good people and use good things, Pretty Simple stuff. Ive got to eaps before i go. , on, man. How has it been in l. A. . Its about six years old i mean its brandnew but its almost 3 years out for the pandemic. People show up here every day. Its crazy. In the middle of the pandemic i said we are going to do something in downtown l. A. You definitely picked a challenge. Good restaurants go anywhere. They will find you. Totally, yeah. What is the story . This is the story. I dont tell nobody but now they now, we dont charge extra for it but you can do it half and half, you can do half rosa and half marinara. Thats nice. The pizza legend said hes uncertain about the future but thats the business. I think we are adjusting to it, still. You think the business is more challenging Post Pandemic than it was prior to the pandemic . We are more aware of it now. What is your future . My future is presumptuous. I prepare myself for tomorrow every day. When we come back people across the country have reached out like what are you doing, how did you do that . Directv sports central gives you access to every game. But terry doesnt have directv. Come on. Work for dad here. Now, you can find the game easy. My barbecue is saved get in the redzone with sports pack. Call 1800directv my barbecue is ruined. Woman why did we choose safelite . Vo for us, driving around is the only way we can get our baby to sleep, so when our windshield cracked, we needed it fixed right. We went to safelite. Com. Theres no one else wed trust. Their experts replaced our windshield, and recalibrated our cars advanced safety system. They focus on our safety. So we can focus on this little guy. Singers safelite repair, safelite replace. 5 all you can eat pancakes are back to celebrate ihops 65th anniversary. So come on in. Even if its your birthday, too. Available for a limited time only at ihop. Download the app and start earning free food. How are you guys doing . Hi, how are you. Its a tuesday afternoon. An acclaimed russian inspired restaurant in portland, oregon. Before the dinner rush, the staff gathers in one of the dining rooms. This is quarter one, first three months of 2023 we are looking at. But they are not going over the dinner specials. What is meaningful is when you look at the percentage of sales comparative to last year. Its a huge jump. There and a meeting with the owners who are discussing the restaurant finances. One of the things that you guys do that i havent seen a lot of is that you share your p l statements with your employees. Why . When you are faced with something catastrophic and it turns your house upside down, you cant go back you cant really put the house back together. We have retained eight employees and had to terminate 48 others. As Staff Shortages escalate during the pandemic, the husbandandwife team reimagine their Business Model to address employee and equity. We were looking at the humanity of what we are doing and what our employees are facing. They all lift with each other. The Dining Room Managers and general managers are making less than the servers and bartenders. When you go back and you reenter this atmosphere again, you realize, we have an opportunity to change things. In 2022 the morale assisted away with tips instead charging a service fee. The added Health Insurance at a Profit Sharing program. Three times a year, they open their books to the staff. We are looking at all of the sources of sales and how we break them up. We want to make sure that there is that transparency, like theres no way that we are walking away benefiting from this change. You guys charge 22 service charge. How do you utilize it, to pay your employees, is that it . We have a fixed starting wage our lowest hourly rate is 25 an hour. No matter where you work in the restaurant and it goes up from there. And we use the 22 service fee to help offset those costs because our total labor costs are far more than the 22 service fees. Ive been in this business for a long time. We have occupancy costs, you have labor costs, and you have cost of goods, right, those are the three big buckets but, basically what you are saying is, you probably have a 20 to 25 shortfall when it gets right down to it, and you need the consumer to pay for the shortfall because thats the way the business is, is that fair . Another way to think about it is not places that rely on tips are basically subsidizing the wages. Theyre just buckets of money coming in, money going out and you can rearrange it anyway you want. In some ways you are asking the customer to subsidize the rate . You could say, lets just fold it in. I will ask you the obvious question. Why dont you just raise the prices . Well thats because since we are in outlier, people you know, at the end of the day, people price shop, you know, you think perception . Its all about optics. Any pushback from your customers about this . So minimal its not even worth counting. Obviously its positive. The owners include a link on the menu that provides guests with more information about their new Business Model. Obviously theres two sides of the coin. Some customers think that they should not be charging the service charge. Other restaurants say its 22 because otherwise im going to close and also please tell. It runs all over the place. So the bottom line is, theres probably no definitive right way to do this. And i believe, this is just my personal opinion, we are literally half a generation away from people paying what restaurants need to cost. Somebody who 16 or 17 who hasnt started paying their own prices yet, i believe when they get to the age of when they will start start pay their own bills, the Sticker Shock is not going to be Sticker Shock. It will be the norm but we have to get to that point. So everything just cost so much more and you want to stay in business and you want your employees to do well and also youd like to make a living yourself. Basically, the Restaurant Business as we know it is fractured in many ways. Yeah, i mean the thing is, if places like ours dont do this, we are going to see a huge regression in the kind of food that we are able to provide for people. Is this working for you guys from a financial standpoint . Yeah, weve been doing it more than a year and we have felt really great about how this is going. We are still profitable , we are still you know, busy. Are your employees happy . We have great retention. Everyone, its bobby. How are you guys doing . What are you making . Herring under a for code . Hearing under a for code . Yeah. We have singlehandedly increase the Herring Consumption in portland by threefold. We do want to share more of the culture and the cuisine with people. We have the vodka that we Just Launched a few years ago so we are trying to build that up. This is the place to be for some vodka, right . Yeah. We do poor a lot of vodka here. Are most popular infusion, you should taste this, is our horseradish vodka. Is this your own brand . Its our own brand. I would encourage you to mix that in, let it melt and create its own sauce. We also sell our dumplings frozen for retail. We have a small but mighty dumpling production space upstairs. Right now we are just in the Portland Metro area and we are looking to expand that. Is that since the pandemic . You have to find new revenue streams. This is all under the same Business Model and the same structure. Everyone who works at kachka whether it be in part vodka or dumpling preparation. When you see the p l you also see how many bottles of vodka. Thats part of it. This is something we feel passionate about. Thats one of the most encouraging things. People across the country have reached out like what are you doing, how did you make that jump . You think this is a Natural Evolution . I feel like this is a sea change in the restaurant industry. Welcome back. We are just running our restaurant. Coming up, all of a sudden you guys have this demand that comes out of nowhere. What do you do . My barbecue is saved get in the redzone with sports pack. Call 1800directv my barbecue is ruined. Who needs that much more tide . He does. Were having triplets. No, what does that mean . 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I know, but im still winning so, it is a competition. Save 50 on the sleep Number Limited Edition smart bed. Plus, 36month financing on select smart beds. Shop now only at sleep number. Okay, so during the pandemic as restaurants were closing, Online Delivery Services were skyrocketing. Im about to take a drive with one of them. I want to see how they get it done. Lets go. Lets do it. Kofi godfrey is the Chief Marketing Officer for doordash. The pandemic hits, nobody knows whats going on. Im in the Restaurant Business. We are panicking like everybody else. We dont know what to do. You start getting phone calls, thats my guess . Correct. Those first three weeks were super chaotic. It wasnt clear if food delivery was even allowed by the regulations but we knew right away restaurant for going to need platforms like ours to taking away the Commission Rate allows us to maintain our margins at a time when all of our other avenues are shut off. We closed for 17 days initially. When we reopen, delivery only. It was a lifeline. How much more doordash business are you doing versus what you are doing prior . Its around double. We had to do a small remodel to accommodate the number of orders that we were getting. We need more space so we took away some of the seating that the guests had. Wow, these are heavy. Good luck, you guys. So you are the Chief Marketing Officer of doordash. You still go on these runs sometimes . What is that about . It allows you to understand whats happening at the restaurant that you might be picking up from so this is part of our culture. It reminds me of one of the things my father said to me early on. He said if you want to be the boss, you have to know everybodys job. 100 . Talk a little about how the dashes get paid. I think people are concerned about making sure that they get their tips . Mark doordash and other apps have faced years of scrutiny from Labor Activists over the compensation and treatment of delivery workers. And drivers have filed lawsuits over unfair pay. Its really straightforward. So we went on a dashed today. I open the app. Did you get a tip . I did. I open the app i get an offer it says hey, theres an order, i choose whether to accept or decline based on what its showing to me. In the accept mode it tells me this is the minimum im going to make. That accounts for what doordash is going to pay. Do i disorder, yes or no, i choose that yes, if the customer tips, 100 of the tips go to me as a dasher. Some cities have enacted minimum pay standards for Delivery Drivers. In places like such laws that arent in place, doordash recently said drivers will now have the option to earn a prorated hourly minimum rate in addition to tips. But doordash and others recently sued new york city over the minimum pay for Delivery Drivers. So the battle for fair pay for drivers continues. You are telling me before that you guys are up year over year, even though the pandemic has subsided. Obviously tons of people see that and they want to get i