Below is a lightly edited version (like removing personal details, and going from figuring out electronic payment to listing the solution) of the email I sent out to the multi-year returning staff. The intent was to explain how I thought we could open legally and mitigate all known risks, given the nature of the Cider Mill in the fall. It wasn’t to convince anyone to work (or not), it was simply to give them the information they needed to make good decisions for themselves. And perhaps to show them how much I had been thinking about how we could make it work.
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I've spent a lot of my "off" season in webinars trying to learn as much as possible about the best practices for the Cider Mill during the pandemic. It's included training for food service, retail, manufacturing, and agritourism, because we are a confounding mix of them all.
First and foremost, this is going to be very different than in the past, and because of that the plan for the first day is just going to be based on a thought experiment rather than tweaks to something established. A thing that I have heard time and time again from other businesses and experts, is that you have to be willing to change your Covid plan as soon as it is apparent that it isn't working. So while this is going to be the plan, and some parts are non-negotiable, it might be wildly different by weekend #2. The biggest non-negotiable is that our first priority is the safety and health of our staff and customers.
All that being said, here's what we're going to start the season doing. The biggest change, for us and for our customers, is that I am not allowing customers in the building. We will be exclusively curbside pickup. This is because of a number of difficulties including the openness of the production/workspaces, managing numbers of customers (max of around 25 on busy weekend days), and managing/monitoring/enforcing customer behavior. As a simple exercise I had determined the rough number of people in the longest average donut line, and determined the length that would take if properly socially distanced. It stretches across town to the Methodist Church.
By not allowing customers in the building we lose all of those concerns and just have to worry about our own behavior in the Mill. Everyone will be required to wear masks while at work (we will be providing everyone with a supply of washable cloth masks that we will be laundering daily, but will also allow pre-approved masks that you already have if you have a preference for your own). Everyone will be required to have a health screening prior to every day of work (a questionnaire and a touchless temperature check). We have already installed a new hand wash sink just inside the employee entrance and will be prepared to sanitize all common areas/touchpoints at least hourly. Since we will not be having customers inside the building, the apple room will become the "breakroom", allowing us to have multiple tables separated by barriers allowing you to have a space where you can remove your mask to eat/drink/be maskless indoors. There will also be an area outside that will be cordoned off from the public for the same purpose when the weather is nice. Workspaces will also have dividers when we won't be consistently socially distanced.
Aside from all that we will be making all of the same products, but we will be offering far fewer of the usual retail items. Obviously the counters won't be a workspace as there won't be customers in the building. The way the customer-facing portion of the business will be working will be completely new for us. As I said we'll be starting exclusively doing curbside pickup, and initially weekends will exclusively be for pre-orders. The pickups will be occurring near the bakery exit all of the time, with traffic flow being slightly different weekdays vs weekends. The differences are to accommodate a larger number of vehicles in line on the weekend, and to keep the back parking lot free for deliveries on the weekdays.
To fulfill orders, we will be packaging pies and donuts as soon as they are cool enough to be packaged and will keep the supply near to the bakery exit, likely on the bakery counter and front counter respectively. Orders that include retail we will be bagging and marking as the orders come. Pre-bagged apples, cheese, cider, etc will remain in the deli case.
To start we will keep our offerings simple to smooth things, probably just cider (gallons and halves), donuts (6&12 of each variety, plus 4/4/4&2/2/2), pies (Apple, DA, and Pumpkin), and a small handful of retail items. We'll be taking orders over the phone as always, but will also be adding ordering and payment to the website.
Hopefully the addition of web-based ordering and payment will further reduce the direct interaction between customers and the outward facing staff. The orders taken on the phone will obviously need to accept payment at the curbside pickup location, while the cash/check option is easy to handle, we now have two wireless, hand-held terminals to handle electronic payment.
What this all means for business/demand is pretty unknown, which means we are going to need to be flexible. I'm operating under the assumption that we are going to do a ton less business than usual, but it seems plausible that people will be into the idea of just sitting in their cars rather than standing in line in a loud, crowded, and hot building.
So we're going to start prepared to do similar volumes of business to previous years, but with pre-ordering and experience we will quickly be able to see what our Covid-normal will be. With all of that, hours that will need to be worked could be very different than what we prepare for, and I hope that we can all be understanding of that. They will be available first to Full-time seasonal employees, then "seniority", and then on a first come basis.
This is, I'm sure, just the barest details of what this season might look like, but I wanted to make sure everyone was able to make an informed decision about whether or not they wanted to work this season. I look forward to hearing back from you all, in general, specifically about working, and any feedback or ideas you might have about the proposed plan. I completely understand if you don't want to or can't work here this year, there will be no hard feelings. As I said earlier the most important things are your health, safety, and happiness, and I trust you to make good decisions regarding those.
Thank you for your patience and time in reading all of that,
Matt
