5 months ago
25
Quick-service restaurants, otherwise referred to as fast food, have been doing roaring business after the passage of Hurricane Beryl.
Jerk chicken provider Island Grill is reporting a 20 per cent surge in business.
CEO Tania Waldron-Gooden says the company was fortunate in having all team members available and all managers in place to deal with the influx.
“By Thursday at least 10 out of the 17 branches were up, and that improved to full opening on Friday. We still had some challenges with JPS [electricity supply] being out. A number of our standby units had to be refuelled; that added some costs, but we coped, and we really can’t complain,” Waldron-Gooden said
She says the expected stock-out materialised at only a few branches, but that the company was able to recover by activating contingency measures to deal with the increased demand.
“We had a bit of a blip, in that we had a stockout at some locations, but we went back to our processing centre, and we were able to deal with that in very short order,” she said.
The Island Grill boss says even with the longer lines and stockouts, the company had strict targets with regard to waiting time and the staff responded well, with wait times being 15 t0 20 minutes.
“There were very few no-shows, and all of the managers responded, and so we were able to meet those targets and have our customers served,” Waldron-Gooden told the Financial Gleaner.
She said that since the hurricane, Island Grill has noticed a one-fifth surge in business and, so far, those numbers are holding. In particular, the CEO cited business at the Twin Gates location in Kingston, which saw a 30 per cent increase in business. That location had to do double duty in catering to essential service workers who were involved in post-Beryl recovery efforts.
“We did a lot of catering for agencies like JPS and ODPEM and the NWA. All of those agencies connected with the recovery effort,” Gooden said, referring to electricity provider Jamaica Public Service Company, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, and road agency National Works Agency.
At Mother’s, the company’s 21 restaurant locations were up and running by Thursday, but customers had to endure long lines and extended wait times before securing their meals. One customer, Sophia, who went to the Fairview, Montego Bay location after a long trip to Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth, said she had to wait two hours on Saturday evening, including enduring a stockout, before her hungry party of four was served.
“Yes, MoBay had some big numbers; and especially Saturday evening, we really had to pull out the stops to deal with the influx,” Managing Director Sheldon Seymour said, adding that the surge in demand at Mother’s is now tapering off after peaking over the weekend in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Beryl.
Fast-food leader KFC has 40 locations nationwide, all of which are up and running, with two locations, Santa Cruz and Junction in St Elizabeth, currently being powered by generator, according to Marketing Manager Andrei Roper. The KFC franchise is operated by Restaurants of Jamaica.
“We have been very fortunate in the aftermath of the hurricane that we were able to reopen our operations fairly quickly and resume servicing our customers, many of whom were negatively impacted, but who needed us,” Roper said of the reopening of the KFC locations.
On Thursday, just after Beryl, a visit to KFC was characterised by long lines, extended wait times, and at times, frayed nerves. On Thursday, one irate customer at Oasis Plaza, Spanish Town, demanded a refund after waiting two hours, threatening to take his case to the Restaurants of Jamaica top brass. At Fairview, in Montego Bay, that location was out of chicken by 6 p.m. and had to close.
Roper said that in the aftermath of the hurricane, the company had temporary product delays due to high customer demand, which were quickly rectified.
“We understand that for many of our fellow Jamaicans, and even for some of our own team members, the impact of the hurricane has been severe. At this time we are committed to serving our customers as best we can and fulfilling our duty to our team members and the wider nation,” Roper said.
“Typically, after a hurricane, persons turn to KFC because we are there for them with convenient, ready-to-eat meal solutions, and we have been blessed to be able to resume serving our customers fairly quickly,” he added.
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