Reopening Blog Post

May 7, 2020

We are genuinely excited to welcome you back into our stores!  We are also genuinely nervous about welcoming you back into our stores.

These competing feelings are being felt by every member of our team.  They have likely been felt by you as well as you may be returning to workplaces, visiting Azzip, etc.  We understand these perspectives and have been working towards a plan that hopefully can ease the nerves and concerns for you as well as our staffs.

So what is the plan?

Here is the high-level checklist that we must be able to confidently say is fully complete before we welcome you back into our restaurants:

Safety

  • Define processes and train ALL employees on new safety protocols
  • Develop and train NEW employee position focused on dining room, kitchen, and other high traffic area cleanliness
  • Provide hand sanitizer stations for customer usage
  • Install additional protective barriers at the pay station and between dining and waiting areas
  • Add additional signs and procedures to ensure proper social distancing guidelines can be followed including floor stickers, table signs, etc
  • Implement employee health screen plan
  • Provide non-surgical masks for all employees (in-place for several weeks at all locations)
  • Complete deep cleaning checklist

Operational

  • Develop and train employees on plan to integrate online order and in-person order streams
  • Add additional signage to help customers navigate our new operating model and order flow
  • Ensure full-staffing available so no shift is understaffed or overstressed

The past couple months have been a difficult time of adjustment for many, with us being no exception.  The next phase won’t be any different.  We are going to make mistakes, but those mistakes can’t be around safety.  We can apologize for not getting an ingredient right or being late on an order.  We can’t just apologize or refund an order for not providing a safe and clean environment for our employees and customers.  If we fully follow the outlined checklist, we are confident in our ability to provide a clean and safe environment for employees and customers.  Our stores will be ready at different times, and therefore will not all open immediately on May 12 to serve in-store customers.

We do ask for your patience as adjustments are made to serve you as both an online (YES, IT’S STAYING!) and in-store customer.  There will be a learning curve for as we try to balance both sets of orders.  In-store wait times may be longer than usual as social distancing measures slow our ability to build each customer’s order promptly.  We may underestimate online wait times or miss some ingredients as well.  

To help focus on that integration and minimize mistakes, we are removing call-ahead ordering as an option at this time.  We will continue curbside pickup (to new designated parking spaces) to help minimize foot-traffic inside our stores.  

We want to thank our loyal customers for supporting us through the good and bad of the prior couple months.  We are going to get through this thanks to your support and the hard working and dedicated teams that serve you.  Our hope is we have stayed true to our values during this time and for Azzip to emerge from this time period better able to provide the delicious personal pizza experience you have always loved.

Thank you!

Team Azzip