COVID-19 and the recent murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery (and countless others) have exposed aspects of our culture that have always existed. Rampant systemic racism has targeted and brutalized black people ALWAYS. The restaurant industry has relied on black and brown labor but has willfully undervalued and underemployed us.
Comfort Kitchen is a black-owned business. It is an immigrant owned-business. It is a woman-owned business. Comfort Kitchen exists for ourselves, our ancestors, our descendants and our community.
Current events have only further pushed us to thrive to live out our goals, vision and values. But with the changing landscape of food service given the global health crisis, we wanted to give you all a project update:
Timeline
Our opening date will likely be in early 2021. The world has had to respond to a global health crisis and that has caused our timeline to get extended. We take this extended timeline as an opportunity for us to refine our business model and get prepared for our opening. It also gives us an opportunity to get out of the way and to allow current businesses to get the space and resources they need to open during this uncertain time.
Business Strategy
Our original business model emphasized sit-down service and catering. As industry people, we know that before COVID-19, catering accounted for as much as 50% of revenue for many restaurants. In this changing landscape, we will be flexible and adaptable. We are considering a potential temporary shift to take-out and smaller dine-in experiences for opening. We are working to dream-up how we can deliver our story and experience in a take-out container. More on that soon!
Team Development
With our shift in business model, we have strategically decreased our labor costs by focusing on developing a much smaller team. We now operate as a team of 6 with each person being actively trained to serve multiple roles. We are developing our dynamic and focusing on how Comfort Kitchen can be sustainable for our small team. Everyone on our small team contributes to our business strategy and development.
Interior Design
We are currently in our preliminary design phase. During this phase, we have been able to work with our design team (Supernormal) to make temporary shifts in our interior and exterior design considering the changing landscape. We are adding pick-up windows and making shifts to the interior to make it both safe and pleasant for our future patrons. We can’t wait to share our space with you!
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We are working even more behind the scenes and we will continue to keep you updated. Thank you for investing in us, supporting us and being part of our journey.
