Meal kits helped restaurants adapt during COVID shutdowns

Elm Street Diner in Stamford has nearly 75,000 Instagram followers, food lovers who salivate over the restaurant’s lavish calorie bombs.

But in mid-March, as COVID-19 hit and Gov. Lamont ordered restaurants closed for dine-in service, not all of the photogenic creations, or their ingredients, translated well to takeout boxes. Owner John Moshos’ fiancee, who works in marketing, brainstormed an idea that carried the diner through the months without customer seating.

“She said, ‘You know, your doughnuts are a massive hit,’” he said. So they fashioned a do-it-yourself kit, packaging takeout boxes with miniature doughnuts, sauces, glazes, candies, sprinkles and cereals for guests to decorate their own sweets.

There was an immediate demand, as families were home in quarantine looking for good food and activities to keep busy. “For 10, 12 weeks, we were a legit doughnut shop,” Moshos said, and he began getting requests for shipping, sending boxes around the country.

As the restaurant resumed indoor dining at 50 percent capacity in May, orders for the boxes waned. But “those saved us, for eight, nine, 10 weeks, somewhere in that realm,” Moshos said.

Connecticut restaurateurs were forced to get creative during the weekslong shutdown, making up for major revenue shortpre-recorded falls. Takeout, normally a smaller percentage of many restaurants’ normal sales figures, was suddenly the only way to stay open.

Owners had to innovate quickly, offering family meals with large portions, takeout kits for home cooking, to-go alcoholic beverages and cocktails, and other inventive options to keep their businesses afloat and their employees and customers safe.

Some local pizzerias offered pizza-making kits with dough, cheese and other toppings, which were popular among families in the early months of the pandemic. Zuppardi’s Pizza, with locations in West Haven and in Derby at The Hops Company, packaged “pizza at home” kits starting in March, and fourth-generation owner Jim Ormrod posted demo videos to Instagram, with his young son as sous chef.

Ormrod said the kits are still available, but they’re “not too big of a seller” nowadays. But at Bistro 143 in Oxford, interest in the restaurant’s $6 takehome pizza kit has been picking up again this winter, said employee Elizabeth Ortiz.

Match Restaurant in South Norwalk has done everything from “BBQ ribs and Peking duck to cookat-home rib roasts and leg of lamb,” said owner Matt Storch, and his Westport restaurant, Match Burger Lobster, offered buildyour-own lobster roll kits as part of a New Year’s Eve package. Storch has also launched a virtual cooking school on the Match website, offering both live and videos.

Another offering, Match Provisions, started as a “truck to trunk” delivery service and is now available for next-day pickup at the restaurant, Storch said.

Shell & Bones, on South Water Street in New Haven’s City Point neighborhood, launched a similar marketplace, said director of operations Steve Bayusik, offering higherend wines, fresh oysters and a cook-at-home clambake package, but also kitchen staples like onions and parsley.

“I used to live in the neighborhood and sometimes, just to go all the way out to a store for one ingredient, seemed crazy,” Bayusik said. “We’re hoping we’ll build that business with our neighbors.”

At Bartaco, certain COVID-related adaptations will become permanent, said CEO Scott Lawton. Seeing an immediate need to “really pick up our takeout game,” he said, the restaurant group reconfigured its popular taco packs with families and couples in mind.

Previously, the restaurants had offered them as larger catering orders for 10 or more people. But with a need to appeal to smaller parties, Bartaco reworked portions and packaging, offering fillings, sauces and tortillas or Bibb lettuce wraps to make four to eight tacos per pack.

“This will be a big part of what we do going forward,” Lawton said. “It continues to be a bigger part of our market share of our sales every single week.”