PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — In order to get through the winter months without indoor dining, one South Street restaurant is getting creative.
Brauhaus Schmitz is completely changing its concept and business model to adjust to a coronavirus economy.
Server Amy Boyd suggested they create a mini-Christmas Village concept, so they could serve hot food to-go outdoors. Owner Doug Hager responded, “Nothing is too crazy.”
“I grew up with that idea,” said Boyd, “because my mom’s from Germany, and Philadelphians know it too, because we have this great Christmas Village downtown.”
The concept combines both takeout and outdoor dining. Boyd said it’s “more like a to-go with the opportunity to sit down.”
The restaurant also reworked its financial agreement to equally share the profits.
“(Employees are) working as business partners in this and gonna benefit equally, and I’m taking a risk,” said Hager. “If it’s not profitable, I’m not going to ask them to buck up for that. But it’s also a good exercise. They’re also learning a lot about what it takes to start a new concept. I mean, we’re literally changing our business model in a week.”
Boyd said employees enthusiastically embraced the idea.
“It saves our jobs,” she said. “That’s the bottom line. There are 15 of us that otherwise — I mean, we can’t all work at other restaurants because not all of them are surviving.”
Hager and other managers are taking a pay cut, but he said if he can just breakeven, it’s worth it, as they want to avoid a temporary shutdown.
Work on the Zeitgeist Christmas Village, as Hager is calling it, began just as the city announced a six-week closure of indoor dining. Hager said it took them about a week to put it together ahead of its debut on Black Friday.
“So zeitgeist in German is a sense of longing to be in different times,” Hager explained, “like thinking, ‘Man, I wish I grew up in the ’60s.’ That would be a zeitgeist feeling.”
In Hager’s case, that zeitgeist feeling is for the restaurant economy of 2019.