“The Health Department currently requires face masks to be worn while serving food. We are also cleaning surface areas more often and providing hand sanitizer for our customers to use,” said Jonathan Horning, who owns the Smokin’ Butts food truck with his wife, Becky. “These supplies are not only costly but hard to find. We would’ve easily spent a minimum of $200 on hand sanitizer and cleaning solution had we not received the RESTART kit. We also would’ve had to use our fishing neck gaiters, along with a handful of handmade face masks, in order to operate.”
Bryan Zastrow, franchise proprietor of Culver’s of Mason, said he would’ve had to rely on Amazon for his PPE had he not networked with RESTART.
“Our regular distributor wasn’t able to get sanitizer for us,” he said. “And Wal-Mart doesn’t have any, either.”
Culver’s is a Wisconsin-based casual dining chain specializing in frozen custard and “butterburgers.” Culver’s was Zastrow’s very first job as a teenager. After earning a degree in human resources, he partnered with his boss to purchase the Mason franchise in 2006, becoming a franchise owner at the age of 23.
Zastrow said Culver’s was more fortunate than most because it has a drive-through window that remained open during the lockdown.
“We did a lot fewer sales, obviously, but we didn’t have to lay anybody off or worry about paying bills,” he said. “Our customers tried to come here as often as possible because they knew we needed it. They tipped our team members. They really appreciated that we didn’t close and that our employees were working in an environment where they could get sick.”
The Hornings purchased their food truck at the end of 2018, using their savings and wedding money. They took the truck out on weekends while keeping their day jobs, the idea being to build a customer base sufficient to open their own brick-and-mortar restaurant.
Serving pulled pork, chicken breasts, mini meatloafs, and wings at weddings, local breweries and farmer’s markets, the large events Smokin Butts had booked for April and May were canceled, so they resorted to family meal deals and deliveries.
“That income kept us afloat for the last two months,” Johnathan said. “Our loyal customers were excited to have our BBQ and being safe at home at the same time.”
In the near future, Smokin Butts will be appearing at various markets throughout the summer, taking steps to keep customers healthy.
“We’ll open an hour early for seniors and at-risk shoppers, and encourage curbside pickup,” he said. “We’ll place 6-foot markers out for customers in line to promote social distancing. Our sauces and utensils will no longer be self-serve from a table under our canopy. We’ll be serving sauces in cups and handing out utensil packets with each order at the window. In an effort to make money transactions contactless, we’ve begun accepting Venmo and PayPal. The RESTART kits have really helped alleviate the increased operating costs that go with this.”
Zastrow said they’ll also be hand-delivering condiments and napkins to individual parties, and that social distancing is the biggest change in their new layout.
“It’s a lot more crowd control than we’ve ever done before,” he said. “We have a ‘dining ambassador’ deployed in the dining room, basically telling people where to stand and wait. We had to take a few tables out to keep everyone six feet apart, but we just added them outside, and people feel comfortable on the patio. Nobody has made a fuss. We can deliver food to your car if we need to.”
Zastrow, who also owns the Culver’s franchise in Monroe, said he opened both stores on the first day it was allowed.
“Business has been good,” he said. “Though we’re probably at 15 percent less than pre-pandemic levels.”
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