The Greene Turtle

Among COVID-19’s many prevailing themes is the fact sports bars took an especially sharp blow last March. Concepts across the country were ready to pull marketing and menu levers for March Madness. But the NCAA cancelled its men’s and women’s basketball championships March 12—the first time the calendar blockbuster would not be held since its inaugural run in 1939.

The Greene Turtle fell firmly into this camp. The organization went from nearly 700 employees to 30and from more than a dozen company-run units to four operating via off-premises only.

Just about a month ago, however, the Columbia, Maryland-based chain reported its first positive week, CEO Geo Concepcion says. In January, compared to 2019 levels, the brand’s sales were down about 30 percent. The gap started to close in early March.

All 16 corporate stores are back, and so are the 21 other units run by franchisees. Additionally, The Greene Turtle is finalizing leads on two stores expected to be in place by the end of Q3. The last time it opened two corporate restaurants was in 2007, well over a decade ago.

“I think that is a nice place to be coming out of COVID,” Concepcion says. “and I think it shows that all around the organization was, by the time we were in May, post-COVID, we were thinking about well, how can we grow this company coming out of this.”

It’s been an eventful journey for The Greene Turtle and Concepcion, the former COO of Famous Dave’s. At the barbecue brand, Concepcion was the driving force behind many of the concept’s tech-forward shifts. A member of its management team since April 2016, Concepcion was tasked with store optimization and aiding Famous Dave’s refranchising efforts, as well as implementing online ordering and delivery. Before, Concepcion held a variety of roles with Greenwich, Connecticut-based Wexford Capital LP in the private equity group and global macro hedge funds.

He wasn’t a restaurateur by trade when he joined Famous Dave’s—something he said allowed him to take a blank slate to the operational room. Virtual and ghost restaurants before they were part of the industry’s collective conscious. Finding ways to meld hospitality and digital, or get a restaurant brand comfortable thinking like a tech company.

Concepcion joined The Greene Turtle in May 2019. Ahead of COVID, off-premises accounted for roughly 10 percent of sales. Seven percent of that belonged to pickup.

In June, the company was generating triple on an absolute dollar basis in terms of off-premises. Meanwhile, the amount of business coming from digital platforms was five times greater.

“A mega-shift,” Concepcion says. “And so the question became, OK, well, we had this one-time effect obviously. Dine-in was not allowed. And consumers should go away when things start to open up. We’ve only seen it increase.”

The Greene Turtle, like many full-service counterparts, added curbside pickup during the pandemic. It fine-tuned its mobile app. It reconfigured and analyzed digital layout to try to funnel transactions into profitable channels. “I think it was always the challenge for restaurants to try to get their guests to order directly from them,” Concepcion says. “And in order to do that, you need to give them an experience that makes them comfortable and makes it seamless.”

Inside, The Greene Turtle implemented QR codes with OneDine for tableside order and pay. It will be testing a “more traditional pay-at-table” option soon as well, Concepcion says.

The reason being the brand believes it’s on the cusp of a robust summer. The CDC’s announcement that “fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance,” has left a lot of operators scrambling. Retail giants from Walmart to Trader Joe’s stripped mandates.

Most restaurants required masks in lobbies and throughout locations (walking to the bathroom, etc.) But the situation is a bit murky now.

“The announcement by the CDC that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks indoors or outdoors means that restaurant operators have the option of determining how best to enforce the new guidance,” Larry Lynch, SVP of Science and Industry, National Restaurant Association, said in a statement. “Because restaurants welcome people who are both vaccinated and not fully vaccinated, operators will still need to work with their state and local regulators to ensure they are in line with all other mandates in place. For this reason, the Association won’t be immediately updating its COVID-19 Operating Guidance.”

“The restaurant industry has always placed a focus on the health and safety of our workforce and our customers, so we are encouraged by the CDC’s decision and the potential it has to help move the restaurant industry closer to being fully reopened in all communities where the virus is not an immediate threat,” Lynch added.

Maine, for once, still requires masking and social-distancing for indoor diners, The New York Times recently reported.

While this creates yet another round of confusion for restaurateurs, it does suggest some real light at the end of the tunnel.

According to an April consumer survey from Datassential, 39 percent of people said they are already vaccinated and 30 percent “plan to get it.”

Importantly, in the past two weeks, 42 percent noted they’ve “eaten inside of a restaurant dining room.” The measure was second only to “gone shopping for non-essential items,” at 46 percent.

And Concepcion wants to ensure The Greene Turtle is ready to satisfy whatever that occasion looks like. “As we’ve looked at our guest journey and one of the pain points, especially where we all know the story on staffing, it’s super tough right now, there’s nothing more uncomfortable than sitting there trying to close the check and you can’t,” he says. “And if you don’t want to work through your phone and pay through your phone, that’s something we do think that’s an opportunity for us to figure out.”

It’s one of those “post-COVID battlegrounds” Concepcion hopes to get in front of. When you consider the challenge to hire frontline workers and staff up, it creates a potential dilemma for bar and grills. If volume floods back, the last thing guests want, Concepcion says, is to hang at a table trying to wave down a server. There just might not be as many guest-facing workers as before, consumer demand or not.

Since Concepcion started, The Greene Turtle has “probably changed 90 percent” of its tech stack elements. Everything from accounting and reporting systems to an upcoming point-of-sale shift. It was groundwork laid pre-COVID. The company implemented operations execution software platform Jolt to tighten some tasks that make running a short-staffed restaurant more viable. Things like ensuring ticketing and back-of-the-house processes and procedures are documented and done every day, and in an easily viewed repository.

Those notions only became more critical.

The Greene Turtle put retention bonuses in place for every level of the organization. And it created a stipend program of sorts at the management level so managers who are short-staffed are compensated for extra work. “What we learned through COVID is we’ve gotten far with our team by doing as best as we can and treat folks right and making it clear that where there’s a challenge, we’re going to try to adjust it and make sure you’re treated fairly as we figure out what the long-term solution is,” Concepcion says.