Northern Utah restaurants are hoping customers give to-go a go

By Harley Barnes, Lance Johnson and Graysen Hendrickson

Elements isn’t known for its take-out.

The restaurant — a favorite of university search committees hoping to entice prospective faculty to this northern Utah college town — is about as close to upscale as it gets in Logan.

But in response to a statewide suspension of dine-in services, the restaurant’s staff quickly put a curbside pickup option in place — and loyal customers, eager to help the local business survive in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, are giving to-go a go.

Elements is not alone. More than a dozen other Logan restaurants have launched a social media-driven campaign to promote free pick-up and delivery options during the dine-in ban.

The Cache Valley Local Restaurant Cooperative is a way to promote local restaurants and help servers weather this uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, said Katie Cox, the social media manager for Cafe Sabor, Off-Premise Catering and Bluebird Candy.

Justin Hamilton, the owner of Sabor and Off-Premise, will provide delivery vans to local restaurants. Other participating restaurants include Great Harvest, The Beehive Pub & Grill, Angie’s, Firehouse Pizzeria, Logan’s Heroes, The Bluebird, Morty’s Cafe, Center Street Grill, El Toro Viejo, Old Grist Mill, MayMoes, Tandoori Oven, Stacked, Elements, The Factory, Caffe Ibis, Crumb Brothers, and Herm’s Inn. 

“We have always offered pick-up orders, but are adding delivery,” said Andrea Steffes, the general manager for Herm’s Inn. “Typically, we are not staffed large enough to handle a delivery service.” 

The advertisement for the cooperative features the logos of all participating restaurants on one poster, in an effort to show solidarity. 

“It’s wonderful, the sense of unity, that sense of brotherhood that should always exist,” said Saboor Sahely, owner of Angie’s restaurant. “I don’t look at each other as competitors; I look at each other as co-partners working to serve our community.”

Sahely’s staff is another reason why participating in the cooperative made sense to him.

“Our number one motivator is to make sure we take care of our customers, but also our employees,” Sahely said. “We want to make sure that all our employees are able to get a paycheck.”

Elements’ front-of-the-house manager, Joseph Quillen, noted that even if the shift to carry-out succeeds, restaurant staff members remain in a vulnerable position — especially those who earn their wages from tips, which don’t tend to be as generous for to-go orders.

“The serving staff are going to suffer during this,” Quillen said.

He’s hoping, however, that an increase in carry-out orders will sustain at least some of the staff.

“Our hope is that that’ll be enough that we can keep several people on,” he said, “running to-gos or deliveries if they want to stay with us.” 

While it’s unclear how many of Utah’s restaurants are trying to make things work with take-out and delivery, as opposed to simply shuttering during the statewide ban on dining in, many are hoping that customers will be willing to order out until circumstances change.

Summit County restaurants were the first to go take-out only, making the shift on Sunday. Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County officials made the same announcement on Monday. 

The state-mandated shutdown of dine-in services was announced on Tuesday.

Already by then, however, it was clear that customers were eager to help local restaurants and staffs, with several reports of unusually generous tips during the final days of dine-in services. At Rodizio Grill in Salt Lake City, for instance, a customer left a $1,050 tip to help sustain servers who would be out of work for weeks, at least.

In a message posted to Element’s webpage on Wednesday, Chef Eric Price expressed gratitude for an “outpouring of friends and regulars coming in, getting takeout and reaching out to us.”

The support, in a time of crisis, “has been humbling,” Price wrote. “We live in a pretty special place. Keep coming. We like seeing you.”

Even before the statewide ban was announced, cleaning policies had become stricter inside local restaurants. 

“We had implemented a timer that would go off every 20 minutes that our lead server was in charge of, and when the timer goes off, they had to yell ‘hand wash’ and we had to stop whatever we’re doing and go wash our hands,” said Brynne Peak, a server at Wingers restaurant in Logan.

“The changes made recently are really thorough,” said Stephen Lortscher, a senior at Utah State University who works at Chili’s, which also remains open for to-go and delivery orders. “We are even portioning ketchup to prevent multiple people from touching the same bottle every hour.”

Increased glove wear and limiting the amount of times the menus are touched were some of the other precautions that were being taken.

Another Utah State student who is an employee at Chili’s, Karlee Bough, said she has seen several servers’ hands and knuckles cracked from hourly peroxide scrubs of menus, table tops, door handles, bathrooms, salt and pepper shakers, and food trays. 

Cox said that social media has been important way to assure customers that restaurants “are utilizing all food safety and sanitation guidelines.” 

Many Logan residents are doing their part to help spread awareness by reposting the cooperative ads on their own social media accounts.

“We’ve had a great response from people sharing our posts to spread the word, tagging friends, and using the service,” Cox said. “We’re grateful that our local community is willing to bind together and help each other.”