It was a question Shannon McPherson couldn’t answer, at least not with numbers.
McPherson, the marketing director for Eat With Us Group — which owns restaurants in Columbus and Starkville, such as Harvey’s, Sweet Peppers and The Grill — was asked about the impact of the COVID-19 virus on the company’s businesses.
“We can’t really track it,” McPherson said. “We’ve recently installed a new POS (point of sale) system and we haven’t quite gotten to the point where we can know the numbers. That said, (the virus) has definitely had an impact. We know that.”
All that is required to reach that conclusion was a visit to area restaurants during Monday’s lunch hour.
At the Harvey’s in Columbus, only a handful of tables were filled.
At Zachary’s in Columbus, there were about 20 diners in the restaurant at noon.
Zachary’s owner Doug Pellum didn’t hesitate to assess the effect the virus has had.
“It’s bad, really bad,” Pellum said. “It really hit us over the weekend. We’ve lost every catering job we have for the next three months. Large group events are being canceled. That’s 30 percent of our business. All of our events at the Event Tavern (formerly The Elbow Room) have been canceled. Our dine-in business is down 20 percent. We’ve had to cut hours for everybody, but we’re hanging in there. We’re still going strong and trying to get through this.”
McPherson said the effects of the virus for her company have been particularly noticeable in Starkville, due to a combination of canceled Mississippi State sporting events and the extension of MSU’s spring break.
With both national and state emergency orders asking people to avoid groups of 10 or more, the dine-in portion of restaurants is likely to continue to fall.
Restaurant owners have already been preparing to shift more of their sales from dine-in to carry-out or delivery.
“We already have a good take-out system in all of our restaurants, including curb-side pickups at our Harvey’s and Grill restaurants,” McPherson said. “We’re definitely adjusting our marketing to let people know we’re still here, whether it’s dine-in or carry-out. We’ve instructed our managers to double the orders of the supplies we need on the carry-out side because we expect that portion of our sales to pick up.”
One business that may benefit from the shift from dine-in to carry-out is are delivery services such as Starkville-based Lazy Guys and Columbus To Go, both of which can be accessed via mobile app.
“We have partnerships with 23 restaurants in Starkville and three more in Columbus,” said Lazy Guys owner John Bass. “In Starkville, we’ve also been affected by the loss of the student population, but we do expect that our business will increase. People are afraid to go out to public places, so I do think we’ll see the effects of that.”
Lucy Crabbe, who operates Columbus To Go with her husband, Pash, said she is also anticipating a spike in business.
“We have 12 restaurants we partner with and a few more that are non-partnered with,” she said. “We just hired a couple more drivers today. We’re trying to be prepared. We have 15 drivers as of today, not including if I have to get out. That goes for my husband, brother-in-law, neighbor. We’ll do whatever we have to do.”
Both Lazy Guys and Columbus To Go are now offering “no contact” deliveries, where customers can make payment arrangements and have their orders dropped off at their door.
The companies are also adopting more stringent hygiene and safety measures for their drivers.
“I hate to see it like this is a big boost for our business,” Crabbe said. “The truth is, we can’t be successful if our restaurants aren’t open and successful. We want everybody to get through this thing and we’re prepared to do our part. I think the restaurants feel the same way. We are all in this together.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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