What is it like to finally open a pizza establishment, only for the COVID-19 pandemic to hit?
Folks at Buster’s Pizza, Donair and Pasta know that experience all too well.
After pushing back their opening a couple of months, they finally opened for business in their Battleford Crossing location on March 12.
Unfortunately that was also the day Saskatchewan reported its first COVID-19 case.
“A couple of days later the restrictions started,” remembers Jarvik Patel of Buster’s Pizza Donair and Pasta.
By the following week, a State of Emergency was declared. The restrictions on restaurants imposed forced all establishments to become take-out and delivery only.
“We had to shut down the dining room”, said Patel, a measure taken in addition to curbside pickup, social distancing and additional sanitizing they were already doing.
It couldn’t have been a more challenging time to start a new business in the Battlefords, let alone one in the hard-hit hospitality sector.
But Patel reports the response from Battlefords and area customers has been good, despite the challenges.
“It was a tricky opening for us, one that was not expected. But it did go through as we expected in terms of the response of the community.”
Buster’s Pizza, Donair and Pasta saw an opportunity to set up in Battleford, due to a lack of existing pizza establishments in the town compared to north of the river in North Battleford.
The Battleford location is the first one in Saskatchewan for the chain, which started in Edmonton in 2001 and now has 24 locations, all but one of them in Alberta.
Patel was familiar with Battleford because of family members who lived there already, who brought up the idea of a pizza place for Battleford.
According to Patel, they said “our town needs a good pizza place. Every time we need to place an order we need to go to North Battleford, which is a ten minute drive.”
Another advantage is that in the pizza business, the lifeblood of pizza establishments is takeout and delivery, so they were better able to adjust that way to the emergency restrictions.
It was “better for everybody at this time to stay home during this unprecedented time,” said Patel. All deliveries are free right now, he said.
The pandemic situation meant some hiring challenges initially, primarily due to the fears of people about going outside. But Patel said they were able to get up to 80-90 percent of their staffing needs, with six staff on site plus another three or four delivery drivers.
An initial challenge was dealing with the restrictions on hours of operation under the state of emergency. Usually they open until midnight, but with the emergency Patel said they scaled it back until 9 p.m., which was not ideal because much of their business comes during the late nights.
They have since been able to stay open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, but even that is limited, said Patel. Their hope is to eventually extend their hours to midnight on weekdays and to 1 a.m. on weekends.
“When things get back to normal, I expect there will be a new normal,” Patel said. He hopes the business can get more involved in the community with the various organizations and facilities by that point.
Overall, Patel is optimistic about the opportunities in Battleford. In addition to pizza, he pointed to the popularity of the Donair part of the business, which Patel expects will be popular with customers in the summer months and during camping time once restrictions are lifted.
The chain is also hoping to expand beyond Battleford to more locations in Saskatchewan. “We’ll see how things unfold when things get back to normal,” Patel said.
