Buddy Ford Jr:
It’s definitely not easy, but being closed and not operating and paying bills, it does not get any harder than that. Get open and the money we know it’s going to come cause we’re selling out a capacity and we’re in a very small populated area. And it’s not even our season yet.
Melissa:
Yes, that was Buddy Ford Jr on our show back in June on reopening his restaurant in Bolton Landing, New York for outdoor dining. Now one month later in the height of the summer season, Buddy is back to give us an update on his business. How’s it going my friend?
Buddy Ford Jr:
Melissa, it’s going great. Our tourist season has kicked in full steam up here. We got our sea legs. We’re figuring this out. Business is on track and customers are here and they’re dining and they’re dining safe.
Melissa:
Yes, so what changes have you made? What’s different?
Buddy Ford Jr:
Well, we basically, we got to deal with outside and social distancing. So number one, we moved everything in the back of the house, closer for the servers to focus on customers, waste stations, taken everything we can and put it outside. We’ve got a mask diplomat that walks around and politely makes sure that we’re adhering to the rules and so are our customers and we’re still dealing some challenges, but what’s different is we’re doing a lot more business than we thought we would. And we’re really focusing in on our curb side online ordering. And we created an at home service Chateau At Home for customers who just can’t get here, but still want an at home experience for fine dining.
Melissa:
So my husband and I were walking around our neighborhood last night and he said to me, “My goodness, the upper east side is rocking.” Which is not something I think anyone would ever normally say the upper east side for people don’t know New York, doesn’t not really rock. But there are so many people out. And what’s fascinating to me is we looked at restaurants where we like to dine and we counted the number of tables that they had outside on the sidewalk and then out into the street.
And they had the barricades around them and stuff, and it was more tables than they’re able to put inside. And it struck us that for those who have worked really hard and have carved out the space and have figured it out, I think they’re doing better business than they were doing last summer. By virtue of the fact, people are desperate. Every single table was filled at every place we went. And so many of the places that we saw had more tables outside than they do in side. Your volume of business, how does it compare to last summer?
Buddy Ford Jr:
We are 20% up to last summer as of Friday, as of one week ago. And we’re keeping the pace as we talk right now, it’s climbing, we’ve expanded like crazy outside and that’s exactly. We have more seats outside than we did inside. And we’re using inside to put weight stations in and service people and get product closer to the customers.
Melissa:
I’m looking at a beautiful picture right now. And one of the big things that happened here in New York is there’s an investment in getting that going obviously, I mean you have to decide, are you going to pay the additional insurance for having people in New York kind of out in the street, because there’s danger to that. You have to put in some ramps on the curbs, you have to decide are you going to invest in umbrellas and things for overhead in case it starts raining.
There were restaurants here that initially didn’t make the investment because they thought when phase three happened, they were going to be able to open up inside. Now that we’re in this waiting pattern, they’ve gone ahead and made a lot of the investment as somebody who’s been successful. What advice would you give to other businesses of any type about how do you decide to make that investment, if you think maybe it’s going to be temporary. You don’t really know how the rules are changing. How do you decide what to spend money on?
Buddy Ford Jr:
Listen, you got to first make the decision are you in, are you out? Either you’re in or you’re out. We made a decision that we’re going to lean into this. And we invested into extra seats, tables. You need tables that can handle the elements outdoors, in case of rain. You don’t want to put investments in tables and then ruin them because of the elements or the weather. So you’ve got to make an investment in new equipment. You got to make an investment in the coverage as you said, we excavated a part of our property to be flat so we could put more tables. We brought stone in, they handle water that when it rains. So the customer shoes weren’t getting wet.
We put tents over it. We leaned into this environment. We made a decision. We’re in this. We’ve got mortgages to make and we’re going all in. And we made a substantial investment in the tens of thousands of dollars. In addition to that, we invested in our online to streamline the experience online. So we’re getting inundated with phone calls. The phones are ringing off the hook as a customer, you’re sitting there eating and all you’re hearing a phone ring like crazy to go orders. We need that to go business. We need be at home delivery business. And the bottom line is we pivoted it.
Melissa:
Buddy.
Buddy Ford Jr:
And we leaned into it and we invested.
Melissa:
Buddy, you are an inspiration. Thanks for coming on. I hope you’ll come back. I know we were looking last night. Customers, they understand the elements more. We’re more willing to get our feet a little wet and all this kind of stuff we understand. We want to do it, anyway congratulations to you.