By PATRICK CAHILL
St. Patrick’s Day is usually a day of celebration at Davey’s Irish Pub in Montvale, NJ. The smell of corned beef and cabbage fills the air. The sounds of bagpipes and Irish music rings through the bar and dining rooms. Every square inch of the restaurant is covered in green, orange and white. Bartenders are racing at lightning speed to keep every drink filled while wait staff are bringing out trays upon trays of Irish soda bread.
This year things were a little different, as St. Patrick’s Day fell on the first day of the statewide quarantine issued by Governor Phil Murphy. Owner Tommy Davey and the rest of the Davey’s staff had to come up with a quick plan to salvage the day. With no customers allowed in the building, the plan was to set up a curbside take-out system. Customers called in to place their orders and would drive to the parking lot to pick them up. But with no prior experience with curbside take-out, the method did not go as smooth as Davey’s was hoping.
“It was complete mayhem,” said manager Sarah Cahill. “The phones were ringing nonstop throughout the majority of the dinner rush. It came to the point where we had to shut the phones off so the cooks could catch up on all the food orders coming in. We were really busy which obviously was good for business, but we were not as prepared as we thought we would be.”
Davey’s is used to dealing with take-out, as they offer it during normal business hours, but this was something totally different. Normally, take-out orders are given to the bartenders once they are wrapped up, and customers will pick them up from the bar. But with the statewide lockdown in effect, and no customers allowed into the restaurant, Davey’s employees had to run the food out to the cars themselves, struggling to find which cars belonged to each order.
“I’d say on an average weekday we have about 15-20 take-out orders, maybe 30 on a busy weekend night, but the majority of our food is going out to the bar and to tables,” said Cahill. “But on St. Patrick’s Day we served over 200 take-out orders. By far a huge difference to what we normally deal with.”
St. Patrick’s Day, despite the madness, was a success for Davey’s considering the situation at hand. Customers appreciated the fact that they could still get their hands on the beloved corned beef and cabbage dish and Irish soda bread. But with the pandemic reaching new levels of hysteria, and more cases of COVID-19 being discovered each day, Davey made the decision to shut down the restaurant on March 23, less than a week after St. Patrick’s Day.
“It was a tough decision to make, but it had to be done,” said owner Tommy Davey. “There was a spike in cases and I didn’t want to put my employees or our customers at an even greater risk. We saw a drop in our sales after St. Patrick’s Day, the next week was really slow and I felt that closing was the best thing to do until things seemed to improve.”
Since its opening in 1974, Davey’s has become one of the most popular Irish pubs in the Bergen County area, having won the award for Best Irish Pub and Best Sports Bar by (201) Magazine’s Best of Bergen. But in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Davey’s is experiencing many difficulties, just like other restaurants at this time. In attempts to create some revenue during the closed period, Davey’s held flash sales for gift cards in their parking lot, where each customer who purchased a gift card also received a free roll of toilet paper. Davey’s also incorporated an online setup on their website that allows customers to purchase gift cards electronically with a credit card and sends them right to their email address.
Davey’s partnered with some other local businesses to help generate revenue in the community. From April 3 through April 7, the Montvale BMW dealership agreed to match the number of gift card sales with Davey’s and other Montvale businesses up to $10,000 in sales with a limit of $1,000 per business.
Help from Government Aid & Re-opening
During the time in which the business was closed, Tommy Davey and the rest of his employees filed for unemployment while they awaited aid from the US government, and after just over a month of closure, Davey’s re-opened on April 27 after they received a small business loan from the US government. With this loan, Davey’s was able to pay all of their employees based off their salary from the previous year, as well as cover outstanding bills and pay distributors. With the grand re-opening of the restaurant came a new and improved business plan.
“I was able to set up an online ordering system that allows customers to place curbside take-out orders as well as delivery orders to neighboring towns,” said Davey. “The online system allows me to change the estimated wait time if we get really busy, as well as delay the printing of orders into the kitchen to give our cooks a chance to catch up if they get slammed.”
Davey’s now has a steady operation in tact, with minimal contact between employees and customers. Once an order is ready for curbside pickup, a Davey’s employee will call the customer and instruct them to head to the blue tent in the Davey’s parking lot. Once the car is outside, an employee will hand them their order without the customer having to get out of the car. For delivery, Davey’s offers a non-contact delivery system where drivers are instructed to call the customer when they have arrived with the order, and then leave it on the doorstep of the customer’s house.
One of the reasons Davey’s has been able to transition smoothly from traditional dine-in to curbside take-out and delivery is in large part to switching computer management systems in January of this year. According to Tommy Davey, the restaurant had been using a system called Micros for the previous 10 years before switching to a more modern, simpler computer management system in Toast.
“The switch to Toast could not have happened at a better time,” said Davey. “Obviously we had no idea this pandemic would take place, but we’re lucky we switched when we did. Without Toast, we wouldn’t have been able to set up an online ordering system, or an e-gift card system. If we hadn’t switched over in January, we would have had to now, and our employees wouldn’t be as comfortable with the new system the way they currently are.”
As for the frequent bar customers, Davey’s is offering mix and match 4-packs and 6-packs of all their bottled beer, as well as “cocktail kits” for mimosas, bloody marys, and Irish coffees to name a few, so customers can make their favorite drinks at home. However, a state law is in the makings that would allow small businesses such as restaurants, bars and breweries to sell open containers of alcoholic drinks to customers for take-out and delivery. If that bill passes, Davey’s would then be allowed to sell draft beer and mixed drinks that aren’t sealed. The bill would last six months, and more importantly for businesses, there would be no tax on alcohol sales either.
Support Your Local Businesses
During these unprecedented times, it’s important for customers of their favorite restaurants to support now more than ever before. Order take-out or delivery, purchase gift cards to use when the lockdown is over and places start opening back up, and most importantly, make sure to leave a tip.
“The support we’ve seen from our community has been amazing and we’re extremely appreciative for everyone that has continued to order from us,” said Davey. “We ask that you continue to keep supporting us and all other local businesses during these tough times, and we look forward to the party that we’ll have when life returns to normal.”
Order curbside take-out or delivery at www.daveyspub.com or call 201-391-9356.
I think Patrick did a very nice job of putting the reader in the story with his descriptions and anecdotal lead. I especially enjoyed your story map, and over all this story was organized very professionally! I honestly can say I don’t think there is anything Patrick left out of this story that I have further questions about.