In late March, we closed our cafés in Portland and Los Angeles, shifting our business completely to fulfilling online, grocery and wholesale orders. While stay-at-home directives include exceptions for food-based retail businesses, we wanted to do our part in encouraging folks to stay home as much as possible and flatten the curve by closing up shop.
While our cafés have remained closed, we've been keeping both a close eye on this situation, as well as lines of communication open with our staff and customers. We're seeing great models and examples out there for how to run retail grocery and food businesses while keeping people safe and healthy. Over the past few weeks, we have been exploring our options and planning for reopening our cafés.
On April 16, we launched a survey to collect customer feedback on our café reopening process. You can find the survey here.
We received 755 survey responses from our customers. We’d like to share some high-level results of what we found.
Highlights of Results:
Between April 16-May 11, 755 people submitted a survey response. Most (75%) of the responses were submitted between April 24-30.
In response to the question, “In the past 2 weeks, have you visited a coffee shop?” the response was essentially split half-half between yes & no - slightly fewer have NOT visited a coffee shop (51% no vs. 49% yes).
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There was also a divided response to the question, “Do you expect to visit a coffee shop sometime in the next 2 weeks?”
44% said yes, 34% no, 22% maybe or not sure.
We did see a higher share people over time select 'yes' - indicating confidence in going out is gaining
When asked “If you don't expect to visit a coffee shop in the next 2 weeks, when do you expect that you might?” - most expect to go out either when the shelter in place is lifted (34%) or 2-4 weeks from now (19%).
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We asked about what physical modifications people would like to make them feel safe. The most popular responses were:
Baristas wearing masks - 71%
Limiting number of people inside - 70%
Physical distancing markers - 69%
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New services people would be most likely to use, there were two clear winners:
Online ordering 77%
Curbside pickup 67%
Our Takeaways:
Opinions and confidence levels are fairly divided on whether or not people plan to go out to a coffee shop.
Confidence is gaining in going out to visit a coffee shop, though many people plan to stay home for the next several weeks.
Customers want to see additional safety & sanitation measures put in place, such as baristas wearing masks, limiting the number of people inside the establishment, and physical distancing markers.
Popular new service offerings that people would be interested in using are online ordering and curbside pickup.
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