FSR June 2023

FIREBIRDS

“One of the challenges coming out of COVID is we have this tremendous experience people come to Firebirds for,” Loftis says. “How do you continue to par lay that externally?” Firebirds took some operational steps and adjusted, and then connected with Flybuy. The platform creates a dash board where Firebirds can see incom ing orders in one place—previously, staff had to keep track of different tablets for delivery and takeout. Now, they’d receive location updates and audio/visual alerts when the guest or delivery driver approached the restaurant, and automatic prompts for the guest or courier as soon as they arrive. Out of the gate, Firebirds saw wait times as low as 30 seconds and increased repeat visits. It also cut down carbon emissions by 11,857g each month by keep ing cars from idling in the park ing lot. Additionally, Firebirds reduced throwaways and food spoilage since the kitchen could prepare and throttle orders to pickup times versus trying to make food in advance. Flybuy helps keep lobbies clear, and Firebirds trains delivery service providers—it’s fully integrated with DoorDash and Uber Eats—to use the system as well. “They get a text message and then they can track their order,” says Chris tine Lorusso, Firebirds’ senior director of digital marketing. “It’s really stream lined the process.” Overall, there’s a queue, not unlike you’d see at a Panera bread, where Fire birds assigns an employee to helm take away and facilitate the business so it doesn’t sag dine-in and muddy either experience. There’s dedicated space in stores for Firebirds to “draw the line in the sand,” Kislow says. “When you understand how to make the technology dance, you can make sure

that from 7 to 8 on a Saturday night, it’s turned down a little bit,” he says. “Then it’s turned back up on the shoulders where you have more capacity.”

One of reasons Firebirds’ hasn’t let off the gas owes to a fortuitous bit of plan ning. To-go comprised a “very small” portion of the chain’s business in 2019. But Kislow says leadership

was ready to bet on it. So it part nered with DSPs, Olo, and set infra structure in motion. Firebirds was deliberate with each step. Then, March 2020 arrived, and the chain’s goals were washed over by a tsunami. The idea was to get somewhere between 15–20 per cent of sales and mirror cate gory leaders, or chains focused on lifting the dollars more so than just percentages. “Obvi ously,” Kislow says, “we had no idea we were going to get to 100 percent really fast.” And even as dine-in returned, it’s stuck, right in that 15–20 percent of net sales Firebirds originally outlined. Kislow credits getting ahead of the beehive. When the pandemic clamped the sector, many of the solu tions powering off-premises didn’t have the bandwidth to take all the calls coming in. Not right away, at least. Every brand, regardless of cuisine or service model, needed a digital footprint and access to channels to get food to customers. “We talk about timing, our timing in 2019 was such that we set this all up,” Kislow says. “And when the rocket ship took off, we were there. Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good.” That’s when evolution erupted. Fire birds started adding menu categories, like small plates and weekend brunch, when competitors had to shrink offer ings as they scrambled. As much as any

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JUNE 2023