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Mid-Ohio Valley restaurants work through supply issues

By Brett Dunlap 13 min read

PARKERSBURG -- Local restaurants are still dealing with supply issues as many are looking forward to opening their dining rooms.

The owners of Colombo's Restaurant and the local Wendy's, Burger King and Qdoba franchises are facing the challenge of keeping stocked as some shortages have impacted what they have been able to offer their customers.

Jimmy Colombo, owner of Colombo's Restaurant in Parkersburg, made changes to the restaurant on Seventh Street in anticipation of new guidelines for businesses to maintain social distancing.

"I am operating right now without any specific orders," Colombo said. "I am assuming what I might have to do. Right now, I feel that we are correct."

Some of the early efforts have been to remove seating and putting more space between tables to allow greater social distancing between people.

Colombo said they have removed over 100 seats, going from over 300 seats to under 200.

" That will give us more spacing so we can do the 6 foot spacing," he said.

The restaurant also will be going to a disposable paper menu. The sprinkle parmesan cheese, crushed red peppers, the salt and pepper and ketchup also will have to go to disposable individual-serving containers rather than leaving large containers on the table that multiple people will touch.

"I think that is common courtesy to offer that to people," Colombo said. "Everybody is concerned about health and wellbeing."

Colombo's also will monito the temperatures of employees when they arrive for work. The employees will have personal protective items on. Plastic shields will separate the register from customers.

"We are doing the best we can to anticipate the upcoming mandates," Colombo said. "We are seeing other restaurants doing the same thing. We will continue to disinfect, clean all of the hard surfaces and things like that. We are doing that every day, sometimes 3-4 times a day."

Since the restrictions began, Colombo's has been offering carryout of its menu. Because of the crisis, some food supplies have been harder to obtain.

"I really believe getting some supplies will be difficult," Colombo said. "I believe many restaurants will have trouble getting meats, steaks and ground chuck."

Also, carryout containers are at a premium and are difficult to locate.

"You have to keep searching to locate them," Colombo said. "I think it is just a normal supply and demand kind of thing."

Food distributors also have to be careful with what they buy because certain items could perish, like produce.

"It is difficult to find lettuce," Colombo said. "There were some days we found lettuce and some days when we couldn't find lettuce.

"We are just going to have to operate under the assumption we are going to have a difficult time. I am sure people will understand."

Colombo said he has been to local grocery stores and have seen at times they have had no meat available.

"One grocery store was selling ground beef for over $9 a pound," Colombo said. "I don't know if that was a daily thing for them or not."

Other times, people are limited to buying a reduced number of meat products because of availability. Cleaning supplies have also had limits placed on what people can purchase.

As a result, the restaurant has had to eliminate any kind of steaks and some of the other things they can't get. They have still been able to get ground beef.

Colombo said because people are facing these challenges too, they will be more sympathetic when restaurants don't have certain items,

"I think people will understand because they are facing those same challenges themselves in getting things," Colombo said. "You are going to have to do some proper buying and have a little bit of foresight to stock up on some things."

He is hopeful that once things open up again and people are doing more business that some of the supply issues will get resolved. He also believes many people are ready to get out.

"People are just tired of staying at home," Colombo said. "I don't blame them.

"With sit down restaurants, there is a social factor involved in that as well."

Although it appears some guidelines indicate they will only allow four to a table, Colombo believes there will be exceptions made for immediate families who have over four.

"They will allow you to all be together," he said. "We are a family restaurant. We get a lot of families with kids.

"It would be a point of contention for some to say 'you can't all sit together.' I think that will be covered."

Colombo said as a family restaurant, they have always done a good job with cleanliness as many restaurants have under the health department guidelines.

Colombo is unsure how the changes would impact his staffing levels.

He has around 30 service employees and changes will be made to some hours as circumstances indicate.

"It will be a day-by-day thing to figure that out," Colombo said.

He does believe that once they can open, they will see a lot of business.

"I assume we and other restaurants that open will have a lot of business," Colombo said. "People miss that in their routines, eating out. They really do.

"Restaurants are part of the socialization people have and enjoy."

Colombo said he has always liked to socialize with the people who come in for a meal.

"I like to talk to people and greet people," he said adding it has been harder as people come in to pick up meals as there isn't the time to interact. Also, people are making it a point not to get too close to one another.

"You have to respect that," he added.

Colombo hopes as the situation resolves that restaurants will go back to dealing with more American companies who deal with American farmers for their food supplies.

"I think we should buy American and that will keep Americans working too," Colombo said.

Ray Blackburn, owner of the local Wendy's franchises, said while other Wendy's locations have had trouble getting fresh meat in, they have only recently run into limited shortages.

"We were lucky until last weekend we had a (ground beef) shortage Saturday night and all day Sunday," he said. "It looks like it will continue where we will have a day or so where we will be out of beef."

They had a few stores experiencing a shortage in the middle of the week. It all depends on when the supply trucks can get in and make deliveries.

"The stores are ordering the proper amount," Blackburn said. "The supply chain is not able to fill the orders and many places only get about half of what they ordered."

Wendy's has prided itself as the only fast-food restaurant that serves fresh meat.

"Why aren't other places affected?" Blackburn asked. "That is because the fresh product is harder to get than the frozen product.

"It also tastes a whole lot better fresh."

As some locations have supplies while others run out, many of the stores are on different delivery schedules which affects when some locations get supplies before or after others do.

They have experienced no other shortages recently and have not had to go to local grocery stores to get things.

When the stay at home orders began, they were having trouble getting fresh lettuce in.

"If a grocery store runs out of fresh produce, it is going to affect us as well," Blackburn said of what suppliers have available. "We order fresh."

They had a couple of weeks where they were not getting lettuce so they did not sell any fresh salads at that point. It has been corrected and they have not had those shortages since then.

Due to limited beef supplies, local Wendy's locations have had to take the Double-Stacks and Triples off the menus. The regular Singles and Doubles are still available.

"We still offer all our other sandwiches, salads and baked potatoes," Blackburn said.

Wendy's chili has always been a popular item, but the only way they can make it is with fresh beef.

"That is an item when we run out of fresh meat that is not able to be made," Blackburn said. "It will not be served during the time we are out of fresh meat."

Blackburn said there isn't a worker shortage at the meat processing plants, they are only allowed to have a certain number in at a time which impacts how much meat can be processed.

"When the plant you are used to getting the meat from is only allowing a certain number of people in because of social distancing, they are going to work with less people and they will have less that they can produce," Blackburn said. "They are producing, they just can't keep up with the demand."

Blackburn too hopes their customers understand the situation they are working under.

"It is not that there is a beef shortage in the U.S.," he said. "We have a worker shortage to produce fresh products.

"When you are Wendy's and nothing is frozen, you are relying on that worker to get that fresh product to you."

Wendy's locations are also preparing to open as soon as they get the OK from the governors.

"We have a plan in play," Blackburn said. "It depends on what the governors have to say. "We are following the guidelines of what they are saying to do."

As the dining rooms open, there will definitely be some changes. There will be more employees assisting customers in the dining room area from people doing drinks to having someone at the door doing a head count of how many people are there.

"It is going to require a little more labor," Blackburn said. "The biggest thing we have to do is make sure the customer has confidence in what we are doing.

"We have to make our customers feel safe again. Once we do open, I hope everybody out there is taking all of the safety precautions to make sure our customers do feel safe again."

Matt Herridge, co-owner of Charton Management Inc., which owns and operates the local Burger King and Qdoba franchises, said they have not had the issues some other restaurants have had as they have been able to keep the majority of their supplies continued to be delivered.

"We have been luckier than some others," Herridge said. "We have not had any major issues in receiving products because of the coronavirus."

Their distribution management and sourcing company, RSI, is owned by Burger King franchisees. The company works with local distributors to get the food to them.

"We have been short on some things, but thankfully not chicken or beef. Some of the lower sales items like frappe mix and onion rings have been in short supply. Of course, onion rings are a signature item for Burger King," Herridge said.

Those issues have more to do with the capabilities of some of the suppliers, rather than an impact from the virus, however. Those suppliers have financial issues they are going through that have actually been going on for the last six months.

Shipments are made as the supplier is able to make payment for them from the manufacturer.

"RSI contracts with supply companies years in advance," Herridge said. "They have done a good job at keeping us stocked on 90 percent on what our product needs are.

"We have been pleased with that."

However if the shut-down situation continues, Herridge also thinks that there will not be enough workers available to process the meat and create potential shortages at the production plants.

"That could become an issue for us down the road, but right now we have been told we are not in any danger of going without product at the big level," Herridge said.

Overall, they are doing good.

"We are in good shape overall," Herridge said. "However, we are looking ahead as this can produce some long-term challenges for us.

"I am hopeful that by opening things back up for all small businesses that we will be put back in good shape."

Over the past month they have seen a dramatic increase in their drive-through business as it is one of the only options for food still open.

Since the beginning of this situation they have tried to help those in the community.

At the beginning of the crisis, they offered free kids meals in partnership with the Hall Financial group in Wood and Washington counties as a way to help out.

"We really tried to support the community," Herridge said. "A lot of businesses did similar things. We are all in this together."

Charton Management Inc. owns and operates nine Burger King franchises in Ohio and West Virginia. They also own and operate two Qdoba franchises in Marietta and Athens with plans to open one in Parkersburg later this year. They have over 350 employees.

With their Qdoba locations they did experience some changes recently in they had to temporarily stop selling their pulled pork and brisket product because of supply issues.

Herridge said they are in the process of making plans to reopen their dining rooms soon.

"We are meeting regularly, the leadership team, to go over the latest information," he said. "It can change almost daily."

"We are actively planning on how to do it. We are hopeful to get our dining rooms open very soon as soon as the governors give us the full permission and a process."

There is a hope they can open up some dining facilities, on a limited basis, in the coming weeks if the infection numbers remain where they are at.

However, Herridge said the wellbeing of their customers and the community remains at the forefront of their planning.

"Our goal is to keep our community and our guests safe as well as all our team members," he said. "It is a balancing act.

"We appreciate all of our customers' patience and understanding as we have had to change our procedures in how we hand out food and take payment."

Herridge has been pleased with how the whole community has responded and demonstrated patience with all of the businesses as we have all had to adapt to this situation.

"I'm confident we will get out of this in a positive way, but it has certainly been a trial."

Contact Brett Dunlap at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com

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