Davidson Brothers Facebook page (2021)
Davidson Brothers Brewing Company may reopen its “Backdoor Burger” carryout option as soon as early February, Rick Davidson said in a telephone interview yesterday, but dine-in eating and drinking may not be open for months.
The company will reassess the carryout option in a couple weeks, he said. He co-owns the popular brewpub at 184 Glen St. in Glens Falls with his brother, John.
Rick Davidson said the carryout would likely open just three or four nights a week for a few hours each night.
Considering the local surge in COVID cases, the restaurant closed earlier this week, a decision the owners and managers made with the staff together, Davidson said.
“[Restaurants are] one of the few businesses where the staff take all precautions, but customers must unmask,” he said, adding that it is just the nature of the business that customers unmask. “We just thought the best thing we could do was protect [our staff,] our most valuable asset.”
December’s federal stimulus relief package that brought unemployment assistance back to laid-off workers made the decision a bit easier, he said.
The pub’s carryout option, Backdoor Burger, started in October and was operated on a “ghost kitchen” concept, an idea that Davidson said his wife Kerry Davidson, who manages the restaurant, and the head chef, Cody Howerton, brought to the house.
Many news articles have highlighted the concept as “here-to-stay” after the pandemic subsides. Euromonitor International says the concept could be a $1.5 trillion business model in the next couple of decades.
A common thread among all: the menu and staff are bare-bones. Davidson said just two or three people will run the operation, offering burgers, fries, wings and maybe growler-fills of beer (growlers are usually refillable containers that hold a few pints of beer and seal tightly to hold in the carbonation). Their current menu online has over three dozen items.
The food is either carried away by the customer, delivered by the restaurant or delivered by third-party operators. Davidson said his company is trying to avoid the third-party option as it can quickly eat into profitability.
Although Davidson Brothers runs this version--“It’s all under our umbrella”--many ghost kitchens are called this because they are run by people who rent time from someone's commercial kitchen, or the chef of one kitchen has jumped elsewhere just for this enterprise.
The profit margin is razor thin, but the federal stimulus also offered a tax credit on wages paid, and that helps the budget make sense, Davidson said.
The staff is less likely to get sick, and it is a way for the business to bring in money until they can reopen dine-in service.
New technology has made this possible, Davidson said.
Services such as Barpay allow the customer to order and pay online and just pick-up, with scant personal interaction, at the restaurant. It is inexpensive. The Glens Falls Common Council worried at their December meeting that not enough local restaurants had this sort of technology.
“That is a major thing that will change our industry as applies to single unit operators and small multi-unit operators,” Davidson said, that is, so long the costs stay low.
In an earlier draft, we misspelled the name of the restaurant manager. It is Kerry Davidson. We apologize for the error.