Go right ahead and leave a cash tip for Debi
Kane, a waitress at a TGI Fridays in Corona,
Calif. She’ll appreciate the money, but
there’s a catch. Under the company’s new
pandemic-inspired rules, she will need to
drop off those dollars in a back room, then
head to a sink, take off her gloves and wash
for 20 seconds. Then she’ll wipe her hands
with paper towels and wave them in the air
for a couple of minutes, willing them to dry.
“We’ve all tried to get a new pair of gloves
on when your hands are damp and believe
me, it doesn’t work,” Ms. Kane said before a
shift one morning in mid-June. “So we stand
there, waving.”
She is following the new protocols laid out
in a 51-page document assembled by the
TGI Fridays management: “Operations
Playbook: Welcome Back Into the Game
2020.” It explains how to adapt the familiar,
beloved pageantry of chain-restaurant din-
ing — featuring buoyant servers, unlimited
breadsticks, ample portions, entrees with
“fiesta” or “dragon glaze” in their name and
value, value, value — to the Covid-19 era.
The playbook has particulars on every-
thing from menus (one-page, disposable) to
condiments (single-use containers only) to
how diners should be greeted by hosts (with
hand sanitizer). Coronavirus-related signs
have been mailed to the company’s 314 op-
erating restaurants. “This table has been
sanitized by your Fridays Team,” reads one.
Another outlines what’s called the “Fridays
Clean Guarantee,” a sort of Bill of Rights for
lovers of loaded potato skins and pan-
seared pot stickers.
After decades of emphasizing ambience,
BOGOs and Dollaritas, big restaurant
By DAVID SEGAL
Welcome
To Applebee’s!
Can I Get You
Started With
Some Disinfectant?
HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Chain restaurants are trying to coax customers
back with promises of germ-free dining.
Every Applebee’s Bar & Grill
now employs a “sanitation
specialist” like Eris Amaya,
above, at the chain’s
restaurant in Westbury, N.Y.,
to reassure anxious customers
who fear the coronavirus and
other customers.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 7
2 WITH INTEREST
Restrictions on workers from abroad are making
some business groups unhappy. By CHARLOTTE COWLES
4 LIKE A BOSS
Carlton McCoy, the C.E.O. of Heitz Cellar in Napa
Valley, is a rarity in the wine industry. By BEN RYDER HOWE
6 THE OFFICE JUNGLE
Who’s tending the plants we left behind in our mad
dash for home? Interior horticulturalists, of course.
INVESTING INNOVATION JOBS MBWC SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2020