In the ruins of Pompeii, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, more than 80 thermopolium counters have been discovered. At thermopolia, Romans could grab a quick bite of meat and cheese, spiced wine, lentils, fish, or nuts with a dash of garum, the liquid extract of fermented fish, similar to the fish sauce essential to Southeast Asian cooking, a condiment as ubiquitous to the ancient Roman as ketchup is to the modern American. Back then, not everyone had a kitchen in their home. Think of the hot table at Chipotle-the one where cooked meats, rice, and beans sit in metal inserts, warmed by steam from below-minus the sneeze guard. Thermopolia were businesses that sold food on the go, using long counters to store earthenware jars, called dolia, that kept food warm and enabled quick service. No part of delivery is new, other than the predatory companies making it irresistibly easy-and using that ease to wedge themselves between restaurants and their customers. But the idea that we have uniquely cultivated an existence that demands convenience to serve our mightily efficient lifestyles is more spin. There are many good reasons why getting carryout or delivery for dinner is a necessary expediency. Subsidized by the war chest of venture capital, these companies have in the past decade successfully gotten between restaurants and their hard-earned customers, aided by slick marketing that convinces us eaters we’re too busy to live without it and promises businesses they’ll grow sales while adapting to today’s uniquely fast-paced customer. Once Covid-19 forced an end to dine-in service in most places, restaurants were at the mercy of third-party delivery services, with little choice but to pay an average commission rate higher than the average restaurant profit margin. Pre-pandemic, restaurants were being flanked by app companies and left with two choices: They could refuse to participate and lose customers, or they could partner with the app companies and lose money on the ruinous commissions.
It was one of the winners, the survivors if you will, of March 2020-because its owners conceived and executed a version of self-delivery. Smokey John’s is the exception to the rule. By the summer, revenue was up 15 percent from the previous year, without a penny of it going to a tech company. Now customers in the five delivery zones around Dallas were regularly placing orders by five o’clock the day before, by phone, email, or fax. They continued these broadcasts every night for months, maintaining the connection with customers that has long been a core part of the family business (originally named Big John’s by their father, John Reaves, until a fire in the late 1970s caused a customer to declare,“Y’all should call this place Smokey John’s instead of Big John’s!”).Ī year before the pandemic, Smokey John’s had been offering delivery through the app Eat24, at a loss, just to expand the company’s reputation and get diners used to ordering online.
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On March 20, they went on Facebook Live to update their customers on the new delivery schedule, letting them know which areas of Dallas they’d cover on which days. So they added up their clientele, product, and wheels, and the Reaves brothers formulated a plan.
Along with the restaurant, co-owners and brothers Brent and Juan Reaves had catering trucks just idling. But within two weeks, business had dropped 55 percent, and things were getting tight. When lockdown first hit Dallas, Smokey John’s was still getting pickup orders. If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission.