Talk about a Win Win Win. Sassy Bird, a southern fried chicken restaurant in Lancaster, CA has brought a little love, chicken, and hope to their city, while lockdown may have impacted their ability to serve, they quickly responded by revisiting how they serve. Resulting in an increase in sales, which they’re reinvesting back into their workers, raising their minimum wage to $15 per hour

Adversity is something we’re familiar with, with where the economy is now, how do you win a game that’s working on old models?

How folks react makes all the difference, co founder Dorian Salazar, a 30 year veteran of the restaurant industry shares how he reacted

“The first thing that followed lockdown orders were the price of everything we needed went up, so we had a choice to make, and we chose to focus on keeping the quality – yes it was more expensive, but I see it as disrespectful to the customer to sacrifice quality”

Sassy Bird’s Co Founder Frank Lopez attributes their recent success to taking the time to tackle one BIG question

“How can we deliver some love to our people these days”

While online businesses such as Amazon and UberEats having seen a surge in business, brick and mortar businesses are finding themselves at a distinct disadvantage with lockdown orders.

What’s Next If You’re A Brick And Mortar Business:

As Covid19 brought about lockdowns, we found ourselves getting a lot of questions that were along the lines of “how can restaurants who relied on ambiance still turn profits during a lockdown?” In that piece we share some tips based on what’s worked for us and those we help

Where Sassy Bird Began Its Pivot

• Remember why your customers buy from you in the first place
• Remember that the people we’re feeding are our friends, family, neighbors
• Asking our customers what they loved the most
• Asking our team what they loved the most

In more good news, after seeing the rapid progress of Sassy Bird, a some local Lancaster business owners have been in talks to collaborate with the founders, with the goal of surviving and thriving during Covid19 as a city

With COVID-19 having led to more job losses than the entire Great Recession, could this be what sparks more people to revisit the old models?

Reallocate and repurpose talent?

Improve ____? Leverage ____?

Take you for example, what could you accomplish in improving or creating an industry with a labor pool of 4 Million?