THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2020 NBU 7chains like Fridays and Applebee’s are hyp-
ing germ-free dining as they try to coax
customers back from quarantine. It’s a diffi-
cult sell, but a crucial one as the country at-
tempts a lumbering return to normal.
Because for reasons that transcend the
merely economic, normal must surely in-
clude the immersive theater that is a meal
at one of these chains. It is show with a story
arc we have memorized: an escort to the
booth; a chirpy server introduction; the in-
evitable “You still working on that?”; the
extravagantly proportioned desserts, with
names like “brownie obsession.”
We know that every beat of this briskly
paced drama — the scent of those sizzling
fajitas, the amperage of those light fixtures,
the clutter of guitars, signs and surfboards
hung on the walls — has been conceived at
an industrial park, hundreds or thousands
of miles away. This is neighborhood dining
as dreamed up in executive suites. The
meal is about as spontaneous as a road
show of “Hamilton,” and it doesn’t matter.
We don’t come for improvised arias. We
come for the hits.
The hits are still on offer, but the context
is new and daunting. Nearly half of Ameri-
cans say they will “definitely avoid eating
out,” according to polling by Datassential, a
food industry marketing research firm.
“Cleanliness and sanitation” are the prima-
ry concern of those venturing forth, the firm
found, well ahead of “value,” “great taste”
and “good service.”
Even restaurants that ace the hygiene
test may struggle because many diners re-
main afraid — of other diners.
“We see a lot of restaurants making ad-
justments, putting in place policies and
practices that are reassuring,” said Mark
Brandau of Datassential. “But we don’t
trust the people standing next to us — that
they’ll wear masks, that they’ll keep social
distance.”
‘An Awesome Little Badge’
The country’s largest casual dining chains
are leading by example, with what might be
called sanitation signaling. Several corpo-
rations have created a new job: designated
scrubber. This is an employee who does
nothing but roam the restaurant armed
with spray bottles and paper towels, like a
bounty hunter for microbes.
The Cheesecake Factory has created this
position, as has Fridays, where the “sanita-
tion captain,” as the gig is called there,
wears a bright yellow vest more commonly
associated with crossing guards. Every Ap-
plebee’s has a “sanitation specialist,” which
comes with “an awesome little badge,” said
Savannah Myers, who has been cleaning
the location in Kendallville, Ind., since it re-
opened in May.
“I carry this caddy around — it sort of
looks like a tackle box, and it has my three
spray bottles,” she said. Her seven-hour
shift is spent wiping down tables, chairs,
windows, doors, counters and any other
high-touch surface. “I also go around and
collect money trays, pens, anything people
touch, and I take them back to a sanitizing
station and I sanitize those properly.”
Applebee’s president, John Cywinski,
said that Ms. Myers and others with the
same pin now had the most important job in
the restaurant. “At least from my perspec-
tive,” he said. “Our guests are cautious, and
it reinforces our commitment to their safety
and the safety of our team members.”
Mr. Cywinski has been heartened to hear
from franchise partners that the average
meal check is higher than it was before the
pandemic. “And the average amount of time
that people are staying is a little longer, too,”
he added. “That suggests diners are ready
for a night out. They’re not in a rush to have
it over, and they’re not going to skimp.
These are people who want to settle in, feel
safe and enjoy their meal, take their time
and then leave.”
Pared-Down Menus
Whether and when diners will return en
masse is unclear. On Thursday, the parent
company of Chuck E. Cheese’s filed for
bankruptcy protection. Brinker Interna-
tional, the parent company of Chili’s, re-
ported in early June that sales at its 873
open restaurants were down 11 percent,
compared with the same period last year.
That’s actually a heartening figure, said
Nick Setyan, an analyst at Wedbush Securi-
ties, and similar to results he expects to see
at Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and
Texas Roadhouse.
“As capacity constraints expand, we’re
actually seeing surprising strength in
terms of customers coming back,” he said.
“But it seems to vary by geography. So the
Midwest, the South and Southeast seem a
lot more willing to take the risk. In the
Northeast and West Coast, demand isn’t
that strong.”
That’s a concern for Fridays, which is
based in Dallas but has a large footprint in
New England and California. The company
had intended to go public in late March — a
plan it abandoned as the coronavirus set in.
Instead, the company started to hold a daily
9 a.m. Zoom call, during which a team of
about a dozen executives from different de-
partments conceived a socially distanced
restaurant, from the entrance to the back
door.
The menu was pared down, in part so that
the number of cooks would go from five to
three. “We reduced the number of sautéed
onions, so that we wouldn’t have two people
back to back in that part of the kitchen,” said
Ray Blanchette, the company’s chief execu-
tive. “Fewer sandwiches and salads, too.”Goodbye shrimp and lobster pasta,
chicken quesadilla and BBQ chicken salad.
Feedback to the company’s call center led to
adjustments. Spinach and artichoke dip, for
instance, was ditched, then reinstated by
popular demand.
To ensure there were no crowds in rest-
rooms, headquarters directed that some
sinks and toilets be taped off. Restaurants
were sent laser thermometers, for daily em-
ployee health checks.
Servers got a new set of instructions, too.
They were told to approach each table,
pause six feet away, and ask for permission
to get closer. Diners are to be asked if they
prefer to have food and drinks placed on a
nearby tray rather than on the table. Man-
agers were encouraged to rent a tent and
set up an outdoor dining space, most com-monly in a parking lot.
When restaurants in Texas were allowed
to reopen at 25 percent capacity on May 1,
Fridays did nothing — other than send ex-
ecutives to check out its rivals.
“For about a week,” Mr. Blanchette said.
“We wanted to observe what was happen-
ing at our competitors’ restaurants to make
sure that our playbook was all-encompass-
ing.”
When Fridays joined the reopening, there
was an initial burst of traffic from eager,
cooped-up Texans. Then demand dropped a
few weeks later, to levels that Mr.
Blanchette described as “scary.” Sales were
down 80 percent from pre-pandemic fig-
ures. With a big assist from takeout and de-
livery, many have recovered — but only to a
still-unsustainable 50 percent decline.
In May, Mr. Blanchette told Bloomberg
that the company planned to permanently
close as many as 20 percent of Fridays loca-
tions. That was before the current spike in
infections in Texas, California and other
states. Now, he said, the exact number of
closings will depend on which landlords are
willing to offer some forbearance on rent.The New Protocols in Practice
How good are the restaurants at abiding by
the new protocols? A pair of recent road
trips offered two different answers.
At an Applebee’s in Westbury, on Long Is-land, the staff stuck to the catechism. Lunch
was served at the adjacent parking lot, not
far from a Sprint store — strip mall al fresco.
The lone waiter wore a mask and gloves. A
woman spritzed and wiped tables full time.
Service was efficient. When a second side
order of onion strings was requested, it was
hustled out in minutes.
The Fridays beside the Cross County
Shopping Center in Yonkers, however,
strayed a bit from the playbook. The first
sign came from the hostess, who wasn’t
wearing gloves. More worryingly, neither
were two of the waitresses working a
grassy outdoor area that had tables and um-
brellas. (As with the Applebee’s, the indoor
part of the restaurant was then closed.) No
one asked for permission to approach tables
or provided the option of dropping off food
on a nearby tray. One waitress wore her
mask below her nose in the way that every
mask-fatigued person will recognize.
“I’m not handling takeout orders,” she
said, when asked about her lack of gloves,
an answer that didn’t seem relevant. “I can
put on gloves if you prefer.”
It seems stinting to criticize servers, who
are essential workers coping in far-from-
ideal circumstances. But they were falling
short of Fridays’ own standards. When a re-
porter asked the company about his experi-
ence, the chief operating officer was dis-
patched to Yonkers.
“He will stay there until I am assured ev-
ery Manager and Team member is execut-
ing according to the new standards,” Mr.
Blanchette wrote in an email. “If there is a
silver lining, it is that you visited on a day
when we weren’t our best so we can see
where we need to adjust.”
On the plus side, the wait staff was polite
and efficient and the silverware came in
plastic wrap. Also, food snobs be damned —
the whiskey-glaze ribs were superb. And by
5:30 p.m., there was a line of customers
waiting for a table. It included Samantha
Clarke, a Yonkers native who was making
her second visit to this Fridays in two days.
“It was nerve-racking,” she said of her
first trip. “Seeing everybody outside after
three months of being inside — it felt nor-
mal, but it’s not normal.”
Her waitress wore gloves, she said, and
offered plastic utensils upon request. Now,
on this Sunday evening, she and her boy-
friend, Stephon Smith, said they were more
concerned about other diners and won-
dered if Fridays staff would bounce anyone
who started coughing in a worrying way.
But these were manageable anxieties,
she said, hardly enough to keep her away
from her go-to dish — sizzling chicken and
shrimp.
“That’s my favorite,” she said, “and I’m
about to order it again.”The theater of big-chain dining now
includes a ‘sanitation specialist.’
Chain restaurants have
instituted new rules and
practices to address the
problems posed by the
pandemic. At an Applebee’s
in Westbury, N.Y., left, every
other booth is roped off, and
Francisco Cruz, below,
spends his shift as a
designated scrubber, wiping
down tables, chairs, doors,
counters and other
frequently touched surfaces.Above, Michelle Andrews,
a server, having her
temperature taken by Ryan
McDermott, the general
manager, when she arrived
at the Westbury restaurant
for a recent shift. Below, an
outdoor dining area,
sometimes in the parking
lot, lets customers observe
social distancing protocols.CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMESWelcome to Applebee’s! Here’s the Disinfectant