- The pandemic has changed everything.

Even such basics as how we buy and consume food.

In the before times, restaurants provided the main way Texans got food with more than half of Texas food dollars going to restaurants.

Then they were shut down, closed by an order from the governor as part of a public health disaster declaration, the first issue since 1901.

Following the order in March of this year, Texas restaurants closed their doors.

Some would never open again.

Others scrambled to adapt to the new reality.

Consumers did as well.

Early on, there was panic shopping and hoarding.

Grocery stores issued new rules for shopping.

Restaurants quickly and nimbly shifted their business models.

Drive throughs adapted as well.

Now restaurants are open with permitted capacity up to 75% as of September, and grocery shelves look more typical, but we're still not back to normal.

So tonight we ask, "What's for dinner?"

as we look at food in times of COVID.

I'm Becky Ferguson, and this is "One Question."

(dramatic music) What's for dinner?

Before March, the answer more than half of the time would have meant ordering off the menu of a local restaurant.

So much has changed.

Tonight, we will visit with experts in the business of food, experts on restaurants, drive throughs and grocery stores.

First this evening is Jerry Morales.

He is president of the Permian Basin Restaurant Association, on the executive committee of the Texas Restaurant Association and owner of two local restaurants.

Gerardo's Casita and Mulberry Cafe.

Welcome, Jerry.

Thank you so much for coming.

- Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Okay.

let's go back to March when we both, when we all learned about the virus, and you tell me what happened to the restaurant business, starting then.

- Yep, so it was that Sunday in March, and we had gotten, I had gotten a call from the Texas Restaurant Association chief and Dr. Emily Knight, she's our CEO.

And she had said we all need to talk because we just got through visiting with the governor, and COVID has really taken off, and they were wanting to close the restaurants.

And so we've got to come up with a game plan, and we've got to work on this to try to prove to the governor that we are an essential need, and we cannot stay shut down.

So of course they did shut us down the next Monday, the following Monday, and all of our, all of the restaurants in Texas were closed.

The only thing that you were allowed to do was curbside, take out delivery and delivery.

I apologize, curbside, take out and delivery.

So it, overnight, I mean, your business that used to operate on a normal basis just got shut down.

And so the fear of what are you going to do in addition to that is your employees were let go.

- And so tell me how the restaurant business responded.

- Yeah, so what we did is we immediately begin to say, we, the Restaurant Association, we have 23 chapters in our Texas Restaurant Association.

We immediately formed an executive board that worked with the governor, trying to ensure that we stayed with him every day, or at least there was somebody in his cabinet to understand that, you know, we have an essential need out here.

Keep the restaurants open because first responders need it.

If you think about it, whenever there's any kind of disaster in America, restaurants are the first ones on the frontline to feed them.

Firefighters, police, nurses, doctors.

And that's what we were saying, is there are senior citizens that can't cook.

We need to make sure they get a meal.

We've got to make sure that single families, parents, kids get the meals.

So we did everything we could prove to the governor that you've got to keep us open.

And so we were thankful that he allowed us to do again, the curbside, takeout and delivery.

Once we shut those restaurants down, most of the restaurants moved all of their tables out of the way and created some kind of unique takeout system.

So you saw tents outside.

You saw pales with poles that said one, two, three, four.

So that when you pulled up, there was a system of being able to tell the vehicle that you're number one, in that spot number one, and we would drop it off.

Most restaurants were able to do a cashless system.

So they had a laptop or their phone and were able to swipe the credit cards, never even having to touch the credit card or the cash.

So all of these unique systems, the restaurants came up with overnight.

- Very nimble.

It really was an incredible turnaround.

How long were restaurant dining rooms closed?

- So we were closed for two months.

The dining rooms were, and again, what Gerardo's Casita did and Mulberry's, we immediately saw a need.

We saw that the HEBs and the supermarkets were not able to keep up.

They didn't, people didn't want to go there because they knew COVID was present there.

The shelves were empty if you remember.

There was lines and space and to try to get in.

So we began to talk to our suppliers, and our suppliers said, please, yes, set up grocery stores or mini markets.

And so we were selling bulk beans, bulk rice, cheese, meats and eggs, which was a high demand at that time.

- Huge.

I remember.

- And toilet paper.

We were able to come up with toilet paper.

Sanitizer, you couldn't find sanitizer.

And it was running out fast.

And that's why I was, wanted to say my son came up with a sanitizer.

Corona kills.

- Corona Killa.

- Killa?

- Corona Killa.

And so he created this essential with bleach and water, put a label on there, and it was flying off the shelves.

So again, restaurateurs were just getting very creative on saying, okay, you're going to shut this down, but we've got to think about how to keep our living going.

- When was it that the governor changed the rules about alcohol?

- Yeah, so after about 45 days, when we were going through this, our team that was working with the governor, we began to talk about how can we sell alcohol to go to help improve our carry out and delivery.

And he thought, a governor worked with the executive team, and he says, "I can do that.

I can support that."

And so we came up with a package where you could do to-go drinks.

You fill up that to-go drink and you put tape on it to seal it up very close, very good.

- So it's not an open container when you're going.

- That's right.

That's exactly right.

And so it helped us with our deliveries and our carry outs.

You would also be able to take a packaged liquor bottle from Pinky's, let's say, and be able to sell it with your margarita sweet and sour.

So you could sell a petroleum bottle and the gallon of sweet and sour mix.

And that could go with carry out delivery.

So it really helped us improve our profits.

- Just for reference, before that you couldn't carry out liquor, is that correct?

What were the rules before.

- Never in history, in Texas history or United States, had you ever been able to carry out like that.

So of course Texas was losing sales, and they're like, how are we going to make up some of these sales tax.

The city was losing sales tax.

So this was a great idea.

It was very open-mindedness from the governor's standpoint, and it sure helped us.

So for Gerardo's, I bet we sold 300 gallons of Margarita's.

- Wow.

Do you think that going forward, that's going to be something that changes back or stays the same, or do you have a feel for that?

- Yeah, no.

So the governor has already told our team and the Texas Restaurant Association that he thinks that this is going to be in place for many years.

So it was very successful.

Oh, and what I'll tell you is, is people were getting these carry outs, but they were going home or getting their food and going home and staying home all weekend and not driving or going out and drinking.

So DWIs were actually down.

- That's interesting.

- Crime was actually down, and the police were liking that.

So it actually paid off.

- You mentioned several things that y'all changed in the restaurant business.

Are there any other good things that came from this?

- Well, you know, another unique area was the curbside delivery.

None of the restaurants really had ever done curbside delivery.

And the Texas Restaurant Association reached out to several restaurants in the metroplex.

They're a little bigger and had been put a video together.

So this video showed a unique way for smaller concepts who have never done it, how to be able to set up a very efficient curbside service.

And so, you know, we were really, the Restaurant Association was really able to help a lot of mom and pop restaurants who were not thinking outside the box, who were scared, who were afraid.

I have 33 employees.

And when that Sunday, when they were getting ready to shut us down that Monday, I went down to three employees.

So I had to let everybody go.

And it was my son who said, "You know what?

Let's do the mini markets because there's a demand."

We immediately brought 15 employees, and we saw ourselves triple because there was a high demand for that.

So that was fun.

Then it was fast forward, the alcohol.

So we had to bring more employees back because the citizens of Midland were very supportive of carry out and supporting local restaurants.

So we would literally have 40 or 50 packages of carry outs going out the door, so you had to have a really good system.

Texas Roadhouse.

I think they did a great job.

They actually got a cooler and rolled it out to the parking lot and had all of their steaks packaged in a cooler.

So you could drive through and say, "I'll take those steaks.

I'll take that, that, that."

And they were able to move that out.

- Well, I love the creativity, and I understand now restaurants are back to 75% capacity.

- That's right.

- With everyone wearing masks until they sit down at their table.

Jerry, thank you so much for coming and sharing your expertise.

- Thank you.

- And all of the things that have happened and how nimble you all have been in adapting.

Really appreciate it.

- Thank you very much.

- Up next, what has the pandemic meant for the drive-thru restaurant business?

(dramatic music) Craig Van Amburgh is president of CVA Advertising of Odessa and vice-president of marketing for the Bobby Cox companies, which owns Roses, Taco villas, and Texas Burgers across Texas.

Welcome, Craig.

- Well, thanks for having me, Becky.

- We're going to talk about the food business in times of COVID.

And I know that the restaurants that Bobby Cox owns are drive through as well as dine in, but I'm particularly interested in the drive-through part, and how COVID has affected drive-through restaurants.

- Well, the amazing thing is, the industry has been moving slowly towards drive-through service, being the main part of the business.

I would say prior to COVID, our indoor dining was maybe about 51, 52%.

Drive through, about 48 to 49%.

But that had been getting more, shifting more and more to the drive because we've seen something happen in the restaurant industry in the last 15 years called cocooning.

(laughs) Cocooning literally is people are so stressed out where they're work, and people and the phones ringing and the computer interrupting and texting and everything else, email, that once they get off work, they want to go home, and they don't want to get out again.

And so the carry-out business became a huge part of the restaurant industry when that occurred.

And like I said, we were almost 50% of our business was through the drive, take out or carry out.

And so what COVID did is hasten that percentage.

And we were very blessed.

Fortunately, Bobby Cox, the owner of our company, Carlos Fernandez, who's the vice-president of operations, had already started working two or three years prior to COVID to improve the carry out packaging for Rose's Cafe.

Now, that sounds like a, kind of a, an easy thing to do.

You wrap it, and it's done.

Well, quite truthfully, that's not it, but for the carry-out business, Mexican food's quite a challenge.

It doesn't travel as well as pizza.

It doesn't travel as well as a hamburger, maybe fried chicken because you have hot elements and cold elements.

And so they started working literally about four years ago to come up with packaging for things like tacos.

Whereas a taco platter with all the elements, and you made your own.

That way, the hot stayed hot, the cold stayed cold.

The crisp of the taco, of the shells, stayed in good shape.

So they had been working on that already.

And that was already becoming very, very successful for us.

They did it with nachos.

They did it with enchiladas for taking.

- So it's kind of a do-it-yourself little kit.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Okay so what, since COVID, what percentage is drive through now?

- Well, I'm glad you asked that.

Our drive-through business right now is probably about 85% of the business.

- Good grief.

- It skyrocketed.

Now part of that is due to the fact that we could not have 100%-open dining rooms.

But, Becky, even when we were able to have 75%, we might get 40% because people still were not comfortable coming in and sitting in a restaurant and eating.

So we did several different things to really, to help our business during that time period.

We already had the packaging down.

So that was an easy part, but we also did things like start introducing curbside service.

- And is curbside service different than drive through?

- It is.

It is.

Because you can actually, every day we would have a curbside meal, which is a dozen enchiladas, rice and beans and tortillas for X amount of dollars.

And so that was, that was a one item thing.

If that's what you wanted, drove through, picked it up and went.

So that was wonderful.

We also did double drive throughs in several of the restaurants, particularly the highest volume one that for Rose's, which was on West County Road in Odessa.

And that really helped the drive through business at that point in time.

But all in all, we were blessed, in that we had kind of been a little bit ahead of the ballgame and packaging, and then our operations people just put on their thinking caps and went after the things that we could do during COVID, not only to help our regular business, but to help people.

We started doing things like selling five pound chubs of ground beef, which is how we get our hamburger meat fresh.

It's not frozen, it's always fresh.

And we would sell that through our drive-throughs when people couldn't find it in the grocery store.

- The grocery store.

- We sold a bunch of it.

And so we really were looking for ways to meet the needs of our customers, in addition to our regular food offerings.

- Let me ask you this.

You said a much larger percentage of your business is now drive-through.

Would you say that y'all's restaurants have recovered completely from COVID in terms of overall volume?

- Almost.

- Almost.

- (laughs) Actually, yes, we have.

By the end of this year, first of all, March, April was devastating for all restaurants.

Everybody was scrambling trying to figure out what to do.

They were being shut down.

And that whole thing.

We're, like I said earlier, we're very blessed.

Year to date, we are tracking very well in sales.

By the end of the year, we may be off in sales 1%.

And our profitability is higher than it was the previous year.

- And why is that?

- Great operating.

I mean, really watching your food costs, watching your labor.

And so it's amazing to me when you hear these stories of restaurants either closing or being 50% off, 75% off, 80% off, to end up this year almost where we were last year is almost unheard of in the restaurant business.

So we really were blessed, but we worked hard to get there too.

- That's amazing.

What sort of safety measures have you all had to implement for your staff and for folks in the restaurant?

- Oh, well, you know, the TRA certainly set the standards.

- Texas Restaurant Association.

- Texas Restaurant Association certainly set the standards for that.

And we worked very, very hard.

One of the things that we found, Becky, is cleaning is so critical, of course, not just the tabletop, but the seat cushions, the salt and pepper shaker, the napkin container, because people touch all of those things.

And we clean those after every single meal that someone has sat there and enjoyed their meal.

And so that was extremely important.

But what we also did was in our spots that we ran, television spots, we inserted into those spots, scenes of people cleaning in the restaurant.

Because our general public wanted to know, are they taking safety precautions?

Are they doing everything they can to protect me?

And so we showed it to them.

- You must be in marketing.

- I am.

(laughing together) - Thank you so much, Craig.

- You bet.

For coming and talking to us about it.

It's so, so interesting.

And up next, a look at changes in the grocery business.

(dramatic music) Welcome Kevin Hodgers.

He's the digital leader for Midlands HEB on Wadley.

Thanks so much for coming, Kevin.

- I appreciate it.

- I want you to take me back to March and April at HEBs in Midland and Odessa.

- Yeah, so I had just moved to Midland in February.

Was getting acclimated to the store, acclimated to how we do business here.

And then we got a pandemic that quickly got into the community in March.

So I quickly got a introduction to how HEB as a company and how we do things when it comes to emergency preparedness.

So we had a lot of communication coming from San Antonio, and we very quickly implemented social distancing stickers.

We did placards in front of check stands, and we were quick to adopt mask usage in stores.

- Tell me about your shift to curbside and home delivery.

Because I remember there used to be about four slots for curbside, and now there is about 25.

- Yes, ma'am.

Yeah.

So we quickly added more spots.

Due to the increase in demand for home delivery, as well as curbside pickup, we added, like you said, we had four spots and we quickly went to 26.

So we saw the demand there, and we also saw the demand for customers to stay safe at home.

So we've also changed the way we've done it as well.

So now it's completely contactless.

Before we would have the customer, you know, sign for their groceries on our iPad, iPhones.

And now it's completely, they keep the windows up, and we just ask for just confirmation through the window.

Right?

We now go to the passenger side of it.

And that's to increase social distancing and to make sure we're all staying safe.

- I remember there was a period of time at the very beginning of the pandemic where if you place your order on the computer, you had to select a date five days out to go pick up your groceries.

Has that changed?

- Yes.

Yeah, now we offer same same-day pickup.

And that was strictly due just to the increase in demand.

So our partners just, honestly, just couldn't keep up with the demand, and we were doing the best we could, but we were seeing such a large increase that we were having to cross chain partners from within the store.

We were doing hiring, and we quickly saw partners in the store transition to curbside partners.

- I was going to ask you how you went about training people, because you really have to know where everything is in the store to be one of those shoppers.

- Yes, ma'am.

Yeah, so our existing curbside partners, they were the ones primarily doing a lot of the bulk work.

And we were having the partners within the store who didn't know the store as well, or who hadn't been in the role for very long, we were having them go out and provide customer service and just take care of our customers at the curb.

- Have you noticed any sort of change in the kinds of things that people buy over the course of the pandemic?

- Well, we kind of saw early on, right?

Everyone was let's stock piling on the big essentials when it comes to toilet paper and paper towels, but, yeah, we saw it level off quickly, and just, I think they're reminders of having everyone buy what they need and kind of rationing out and taking care of one another, really helps spread the message among the community.

- I noticed that inventory has improved with some of those paper products, but there still seem to be some inventory issues around like aluminum cans.

Are there other things that have been problematic?

- You hit it right there.

Yeah.

It's a lot of the inventory on the aluminum cans, and that comes strictly from the supplier.

So I wish we had a solution for that, but that comes directly from our suppliers.

- And y'all have had to increase your staff, I would assume.

- Yes.

Yeah.

We've done a good mixture of both.

We've had a cross between a lot of partners in our stores.

So now the great thing that it's kind of come out of this is our partners are able to do more within the store.

So they're able to support wherever the business needs inside the store.

But, yes, we have had some hiring external needs as well.

- Have you noticed again, in customers' purchasing habits, are people buying more ready-made dishes or are they buying kind of the same things that they used to buy?

Have there been changes in people's buying patterns?

- Yeah, so we're seeing customers now at home for longer periods of time.

So at first, they could rely on school to provide the breakfast, lunch, and then just worry about the dinner.

But now kind of with that extended summer we were seeing breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all being provided at home.

So we offer tons of great solutions.

And again, like you said, we were starting to see that pattern started to change.

- One thing I noticed is that there was a huge demand, all of a sudden on the baking aisle.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- Yeah.

We were seeing a lot more cakes being made at home, a lot of pies, and I think it really just spoke volumes to the amount of time that people were spending with their families.

They're able to take a step back and to really enjoy that time with one another.

- And so how did y'all accommodate the increased demand on that aisle, which is flower, for people that don't go down that aisle, that's flour and sugar and cake mixes and those kinds of things.

- Yeah, so we actually, during the height of the pandemic, we had suppliers actually helping us provide items to the store, whether it be milk, whether it be eggs or whether it be baking goods.

Whereas trucks would normally carry different loads.

We were having them carry high velocity items and items that really customers were demanding and needing help with.

- I know you all have like an emergency response team in San Antonio.

Can you talk a little bit about how that worked when all of this began to happen?

- Mm-hmm, yeah, so in January, we were getting communication that there was a virus and there was a pandemic, really started- - In January.

- In January, right.

There was, starting to get some news out of Asia that things were starting to pick up.

So our team went into action right away and started to give us a game plan just in case things came to Texas.

And we quickly saw within two months that that happened.

So we, yeah, we were prepared.

And so as soon as that happened, we got a game plan rolled out.

We had the stickers, we had the placards, and I felt more than ever, really comfortable with the plan that we were rolling out.

And so any time we had a question, we just reached out to that team, and they were very responsive to anything that we needed.

- Are y'all having pretty good mask compliance?

- Yes, ma'am.

Yeah, we're having great compliance with the mask ordinance, and we follow the governor's orders.

So we do make exceptions for people with, our customers with health conditions as well as children under 10.

- Kevin, thank you so much for coming and sharing your expertise.

We really appreciate it.

And coming up next, art matters.

(dramatic music) Our painting tonight is entitled "Bright Mirror" by Jacob Kainen, 1909 to 2001.

Throughout his remarkable life, Kainen experimented with different mediums and explored many styles.

His work took root in the social realism of the 1930s.

Later becoming involved in the development of abstract expressionism.

Fiercely independent and anti-establishment, he rejected labels and moved from visceral abstractions to figurative work to abstraction again, refining these styles at his own pace.

His work became well-known for its variations in diversity, color and form and explorations of light and space.

Today, his work is represented in, among others, the collections of the Smithsonian and the Museum of Modern Art.

You can see this and a large collection of paintings from the 1800s to today at Baker Schorr Fine Art Gallery in Midland.

Finally, thank you for watching "One Question."

We'll be back each Monday at 5:00 following "Basin Life," where we will answer the questions you want to know from the people who know.

If you have a question, send it to us at OneQuestion@basinpbs.org.

Up next, "BBC World News America" with Katty Kay, followed by "PBS News Hour."

I'm Becky Ferguson.

Goodnight.

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