Check Please Cafe adding delivery, online orders

Check Please Cafe, 597 Main St. in Grafton, is open for business despite the dining area closed to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus.

The business has made changes, but has adapted to serve customers.

“We are doing delivery now,” said Tricia Vruvas, owner of the restaurant. “We didn’t use to be a delivery service, but we went ahead and started it to keep business going.

“It’s like opening a whole new restaurant. With all the processes that we had to change, and we also added online ordering so people have that option. We created a website to do the online ordering, so we added all of that because we wanted to make sure we stayed busy during this time.”

Vruvas said the restaurant worked immediately to adapt to Gov. Mike DeWine’s order from March 15.

“We went out and got more takeout containers, but that next day, we were super slow,” she said. “I knew we had to do something.

“If people are told you can only do carry-out or delivery, they immediately think of fast food and pizza, or they think of whatever you can get on Grubhub, like Chipotle or things like that. They don’t think of restaurants like ours, and we were 90 percent diner.”

Vruvas said Check Please Cafe started deliveries the next day.

“We just started doing Facebook posts the next day,” she said. “I told all the servers that I will keep them on the schedule, but they’re going to have to make deliveries, and they said they would.

“So, they all became drivers and it’s working so far.”

Community support

“We have a lot of regulars who have ordered something from us every day,” Vruvas said. “The online thing came about because the week that this happened, that Tuesday (March 17), was St. Patty’s Day and a lot of people wanted corned beef.

“We were so busy that day. We sold out of corned beef, and we couldn’t keep up with the phones. Our carryout was 10 percent of the business before, but the phone was off the hook. We actually had to take the phone off the hook for 30 minutes because we had so many orders. I didn’t even know if we could have taken any more orders, so we needed time to regroup.”

Vruvas said she felt bad when all the corned beef was sold.

“That was the case for other restaurants; I know a lot of them ran out,” she said. “I posted the next day that I got more corned beef, and that was really busy, too.

“People then started getting used to the delivery. The online we just turned on a few days ago. That was started because we were on the phone taking an order, and it was beeping in that another call was coming.”

Innovative

“We are not doing as much as we would be if (the dining) was still open, but it has allowed us to stay open,” Vruvas said. “I also saw posts about people saying they can’t get toilet paper, they can’t get disinfectant ... they can’t get chicken.

“I have a server who was looking for Tyson chicken fries for her daughter that had been sold out. I called my supplier, who does business with Tyson, and I was able to get Tyson chicken fries.”

Vruvas said she realized she had the connections to make items more accessible for people.

“I then realized I have a lot of stuff that people need, and I do business with places that aren’t grocery stores, so I can still get it,” she said. “We figured, we weren’t using the dining room, so let’s just bring it forward.

“So, with the ingredients I use for the food, we opened up the dining area into a little market space.

Now, we are selling produce, ground beef, chicken, bread, eggs. I can still get this stuff, so I’m just letting people buy the stuff that they need during this tough time.

“I figured, why not? We aren’t using this space for anything else, so we decided we will have Check Please market in the meantime.”

Vruvas said most of the deliveries are within a seven-mile radius.

“I do tell people, who live beyond seven miles, to call and ask,” she said. “If we are not busy, we have done exceptions to that.

“We’ve gone out to Medina, Litchfield, and North Ridgeville. We’ll try to accommodate if we can.”

Vruvas said the restaurant is known for its “real food” approach to restaurant food with ingredients from several local suppliers.

“We are also known for our check sheets, which is why it’s called Check Please,” she said. “You can customize your dish; pick your bread, pick your meat, pick your cheese.

“So, it’s a customizable menu, and we focus on a clean-eating approach. We only cook with real butter. We don’t have high-fructose corn syrup in any of our foods. We make all of our desserts from scratch; they’re simple recipes. That’s what makes us different.”