Restaurant offering produce boxes

Amid non-essential business shutdowns and stay-at-home/shelter-in-place orders, Americans have faced numerous COVID-19 pandemic issues. Many of those were just as much supply-chain issues as supply issues.

Take March 18 in Albuquerque, when a toilet paper manufacturer that primarily served wholesale distributors tweaked its supply chain and offered a public sale. Miles of cars lined up at Roses Southwest Papers Inc. and drivers frustrated by empty grocery store shelves forked over $35 in cash for 96 rolls of the new white gold.

In eastern New Mexico, a decades-old business has leveraged its own supply chains to keep its customers stocked up on fresh food and its employees out of the unemployment line.

The idea for Something Different Grill to start offering produce boxes came after co-owner Christy Vandenberg made a grocery store run. Whether her fears were justified or not, she just didn’t feel right in the produce section.

“I don’t know if people have been touching these,” she said. “The box items, I felt fine. The fresh stuff I felt really nervous about getting. Everybody just wants to get in and get out.”

She thought of her discomfort, and then imagined if she was a senior citizen or a single parent. The self-confessed health nut feared somebody in such a position might revert to junk food, and thought her restaurant could provide a palatable alternative.

“I started reaching out to different farms, my vendors, finding out what we could get,” Vandenberg said.

She worked with co-owner Leo Vandenberg, district manager Matthew Gayte and projects manager Brandy Urioste to map out giving customers basic produce while still primarily operating as a restaurant.

The group landed on two different options — a $30 vegetable box with about 20 pounds of goods, and a $26 fruit box clocking in around 18 pounds. The box contents will shift to preserve the price point, but staples like tomatoes, avocados and lettuce should remain.

Orders are fulfilled on Tuesdays and Fridays, with customers required to place an order at least two days in advance. Pickup is free, and delivery is $1.50.

To help move some of the first boxes, three rolls of toilet paper were added to the deal. Those rolls were what remained after a case was distributed among employees who were running low at home.

The chain sold about 50 boxes in its first week and 250 in the second week after online marketing and word-of-mouth. The extra revenue has helped the restaurants, which employ about 100 between the Portales location first opened in 1999 and its two Clovis expansions.

The initiative brought back the 30% of staff Something Different Grill initially furloughed.

A few boxes were sold early in the chain’s Lubbock and Levelland locations, but a chain-wide rollout was nixed because ownership couldn’t be in Texas enough to provide the necessary oversight and support.

The Texas stores will be added eventually, and the thinking going forward is the box sales will continue after the stay-at-home orders end.

“I think the convenience factor is going to keep it going,” Christy Vandenberg said. “It’s not even a premium price. It’s about the same price you’re getting at the grocery store. Demand could completely go flat, but it’s a convenient service we’re offering and it’s good, so I think it’s going to stay with us for a while.”