Restaurants reopening right: Flights, revisited
One thing the COVID-19 crisis has made clear is which businesses are the true innovators.
When things in our communities started closing down for health and safety reasons in March of this year, we noticed one local restaurant, Flights, was adapting to the situation by creating new ways to generate revenue that were innovative and inspiring. (We wrote about it here.)
Quick summary: Since serving patrons at the restaurant was not an option, Flights’ owner, Alex Hult, and staff got creative with what they could offer--and how they could connect their efforts to supporting the wider community.
Now that some time has passed and the way we’re dealing with the pandemic has evolved, we thought we’d revisit Flights to see what they’re up to as we near the end of 2020.
Reopening with outdoor and indoor dining - and new events and offerings
Here in Northern California; health officials have allowed outdoor dining all summer, and for a time; indoors with requisite spacing and airflow. This has allowed Flights to welcome customers back for the usual and delightful experience of fun-sized food and drink options. But rather than going back to how they did things before the pandemic, Flights has kept some of its innovations; such as delivery and bottled multiple-serving cocktail offerings.
Although these adaptations and new offerings have brought in more business, Flights found that it was still below it’s pre-COVID revenue levels. Determined to fight its way back, the team put its heads together once again. This time, the innovation was to launch a series of new events and other programs that help Flights stay connected with the community, bring in revenue, and support important causes.
Making Saturday afternoon special
The first program Flights implemented is a partnership with local auto dealerships called “The Mile High Club”. (While the restaurant was inspired by the idea of “Flights” a term used by food aficionados to describe a selection of wines or cocktails, Flights uses an aviation motif in its branding. So this new program fits well with that.)
The Bay Area (and Los Gatos in particular) has no shortage of luxury car dealerships, but with folks less interested in going into a showroom, the team at Flights created an alternative--regular Saturday afternoon brunch events.
The goal of these events is for people to enjoy a safe, fun, lively social gathering. Mile High Club 'members' are wined and dined all afternoon, while also having the opportunity to take fun photos with sports cars provided by that week’s partnering auto dealership.
Flights of champagne paired with caviar provide an enticing and appropriate meal to folks as they check out new model high-end automobiles.
These events provide an opportunity for attendees to connect with each other while generating terrific photos that raise Flights and its partners’ social media profiles and increase awareness.
Keeping ahead of the game
When the pandemic economic shutdowns started, team Flights worked closely with its local chamber of commerce to share best practices and to help other businesses impacted by COVID-19. Flights team members were leaders in the #FeedTheNeed campaign which garnered media attention and raised considerable money to support individuals, families and businesses impacted with job and income disruption.
As things have evolved, in addition to keeping close to their community via individual chambers of commerce, Flights is now working very closely with Santa Clara County CEO, Jeff Smith, to help promote safe and sustainable practices for restaurants and other businesses and to establish rules that will protect public health and provide best practices and guidelines for keeping business activities in motion. In this recent article, you can see the communication and collaboration between these public and private organizations.
Looking to the holidays and 2021
Hult and team have also put together a number of customizable options to support smaller family and “pod” gatherings, utilizing the dinners-to-go processes they honed while they were not allowed to have on premises dining. This has also helped to add revenue.
While this proactive approach to providing smaller dinners for Thanksgiving and other December holiday events will garner business, realistically,it will not make up for the very substantive losses that will result from not being able to host company holiday parties. “The end-of-year celebrations by businesses big and small, up and down the Peninsula, are going to be sorely missed this year,” said Hult. He does hope to gain some incremental revenue from gift certificates and gifting of Flights’ bespoke, large format cocktails. But exactly how much revenue this will generate is a big unknown.
A summary of the fun new holiday gifts/ innovations being tried out:
cheese boards
charcuterie board
sommelier blind wine tasting kit
cocktail growlers
family meals
Regardless, we’re sure that Flights will continue to innovate and evolve in ways that will both ensure success and build goodwill with the community. “When this is all over I do hope we will be better off. I sure have grown closer with my staff and I never had a better team then I have now. What seemed like a big problem before is a piece of cake now after dealing with all the curveball the pandemic has thrown at us”, said Hult.
