Time for another update on oddball occurrences and dizzy developments in the foodservice sector… Like a well-known billionnaire’s craving for a 3-star soda and an urge to coddle delivery drivers…
Becoming crucial members of the team…
Here’s a development I had not considered, much less expected would ever actually come to be: Chick-Fil-A (CFA)(of all players) is sponsoring a warming room for food delivery service rider/drivers in New York City. It’s described as, “a limited-time experience for individuals who work in the food delivery community to rest, get warm and recharge during New York City’s harshest winter days.”
CFA is partnering with its New York restaurant Operators, to open The Brake Room, available to any food delivery agent who needs break.
Mutual admiration
“Every day, Chick-fil-A Operators look to show care for their Team Members and the communities in which their restaurants are located,” Joe Saracino, Senior Vice President of Brand Strategy, Advertising and Media at CFA.
“The food delivery community is an extension of the same experience CFA restaurants provide our guests, and an increasingly significant part of the business,” Saracino explains. “We created The Brake Room as a small gesture, a little thing to thank them for all they do to serve our guests, especially in a market experiencing high demand in sometimes harsh winter weather conditions.”
‘An increasingly significant part of the business”
I think the whole thing has been masterfully crafted to play to delivery people while earning CFA brownie points wit its customer base, who might be conerned about the comfort and safety of food delivery guys who show up at their doors on icy winter nights. Assauge the guilt for ordering in the first place, and putting the delivery guys and gals through weather hell.
I surmise that if any shortage takes place in availability of delivery personnel because of untenable weather, CFA wants driver/riders who persevere with the job to stick with or gravitate towards CFA. A little bribery, if you will.
“The food delivery community helps to power our businesses, and this is just our small way of showing appreciation for all they do,” Jared Caldwell, a CFA restaurant Owner/Operator in New York City, explains.
A small army
It’s estimated that more than 65,000 foodservice deliery driers are operating in New York City every day these days. They’ve quickly become a critical and delicate link between food providers and their customers. The way the foodservice business model has evolved over the past few years, if there aren’t enough delivery driver/riders, the whole thing breaks down.
Pretty shrewd..
A pretty shrewd plan to make winter little less onerous on all involved. This used to be called a ‘win-win’ situation…
Was that Bill Gates – or Elon Musk?
And just a quick note about a Bill Gates story that recently surfaced recently but refers to an event from perhaps a decade ago.
I had to admit that I found it hard to believe that we were talking about sensitive, generous, level-headed Bill Gates when I first came across this story. It sounded more like something like quirky, self-centred, occasionally downright loopy Tesla / SpaceX / Twitter owner Elon Musk might pull.
Anyway, the story goes that Gates reserved 3-Michelon-Star restaurant ABaC in Barcelona, Spain, all day for two full days once. And when he finally showed up, he said, “Thanks but no thanks,” to the extensive tasting feast the staff had painstakingly set out for him, ordered a soda and left.
No explanation. No ‘sorry’. No tip (that we’ve heard of). And as it stands at the moment, no chance we’ll ever learn what went on behind the curtain resulting in that odd behaviour.
I hope Gates got charged something for taking the resto offline for two whole days. That might have cost an eatery like ABaC tens of thousands of dollars in revenues. Consider this: The resto’s amazing tasting menu costs (US)$313 per person!
Compare and contrast this Bill Gates with the one who has since started a billion-dollar foundation largely devoted to making sure starving people around the world can get enough food and fresh water to wash it down with…
~ Maggie J.