From the Editors
Posted by estiator at 10 March, at 03 : 13 AM Print
Lions, Lambs, and a Season of Survivor
Βy the time this issue reaches you, March will be upon us. But as this letter is being drafted we’re still in the heart of February, with winter storms shutting down Texas and snow covering much of the United States. Even in the old country, the Acropolis is blanketed in snow while thousands of Athenians go without power. As we prepare to close a strange 12-month period that began with the shutdown of restaurants in mid-March of 2020, it seems apropos that Mother Nature would give us one more good kick in the backside.
But the weather isn’t just inconvenient this year: With thousands of restaurants teetering on the brink of insolvency, a prolonged winter could be the difference between permanently shutting the doors and staying alive for too many in our industry. If March comes in like a lion, many could end up as dead meat, even if it does go out like a lamb.
Over the last several months, we’ve tried to make sense of the Year of the Pandemic in these pages. And while fingers are crossed that it’s a once-ina-century event, it’s difficult to escape the feeling that our industry has been cast into a game of Survivor. And to come out on the other side, we’ve learned how to adjust our entire business model around what was once an ancillary part of our operation (takeout); we’ve figured out how to move our operations outdoors with all-weather tents, makeshift patios, and streets turned pedestrian walkways; and we’ve come up with unique ways to adapt our menus without diluting our brands (through the creation of ghost kitchens, family-style takeout trays. and fun street food options). In this month’s issue, contributor Michael Kaminer ponders if franchises offer the best blueprint for survival in his piece “Franchises to Watch in 2021: In a Pandemic Economy Do Franchises Have an Edge?” In the meantime, our resident restaurant consultant, Constantine Kolitsas, looks at how pricing your menu properly communicates quality, and how commanding prices that leave the proper profit margin is critical to your business’s survival, even in tough times.
The Editorial & Publishing Staff
