With dining-in currently barred in New York state, restaurants and eateries are having to get creative to stimulate business.
Orders are still coming in, and pizzas are in the oven. But the dining room is empty.
“It’s a very weird time to operate a business right now, with everything going on," Salvatore's President Silvio Fantauzzo said. "We’re just trying to do everything we can to stay open.”
Luckily for pizza places like Salvatore’s, delivery is synonymous with pizza.
“Pizza is like the number one thing people get delivered. So it worked out for us in our favor for now,” Fantauzzo said.
And to take things a step further to protect their customers and staff amidst the coronavirus outbreak, the company is trying something new: touchless delivery.
The customer pays for the pizza in full, and then the delivery driver will leave the pizza outside the door. No face-to-face interaction.
“It’s keeping us safe, and it’s keeping the customer safe so this way we’re not interacting with each other. It’s a win-win,” Fantauzzo said.
For customers like Paul Bonino, it’s a reassuring measure.
“I think a lot of food services should be thinking that way," Bonino said. "It’s certainly the way of the present, and maybe the future.”
So though the dining room might be empty, dinner tables won’t be.
“We’re still open here, we’ve got to feed Rochester," Fantauzzo said. "We’re here for you, and as long as we can be, we’ll be here.”
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