When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, and with it the measures of restriction and confinement, the restaurants of the United States reduced their services considerably, with deliveries, in many cases, as the only possibility to continue operating. In small businesses this limitation has had a greater impact.
Since the end of March, 53 Latino restaurants in Philadelphia and the south and center of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware – bordering states, located in the east of the country that make up the Delaware Valley – are benefiting from a marketing campaign to boost their home deliveries during the weekends and help keep their businesses afloat and healthy: the Dine Latino Take-Out Weekend, active every week Friday through Monday.
The Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GPHCC) is organizing this campaign aimed only at the region’s small Latino restaurants. It excludes corporate food chains.
The Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce campaigns among its members networks to encourage them to order food from the restaurants in the list that is published on its website. Among the options there are Colombian, Mexican, Venezuelan, Guatemalan, Puerto Rican, Argentinean, Dominican, and Peruvian restaurants, as well as a hamburger joint, a bakery, and vegetarian and vegan cafés also run by Latinos. With the data of the restaurants, the home delivery services available for each one are also published.
Besides, the GPHCC uses its social media for promotion, with the hashtags #DineLatino and #LatinoTakeOut.
To participate, restaurants must register by filling in a form on this site, free of charge. They must be located in the Delaware Valley and do not need to be members of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Philadelphia.
“There is nothing more important to us than to keep our employees and to guarantee that they have an income in these difficult times,” Gilberto Arends, the owner of the Venezuelan restaurant Puyero Venezuelan Flavor, told Jesenia de Moya Correa for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Arends signed his restaurant up for the campaign. He has furloughed six of his employees.
The Colombian restaurant El Bochinche, which Ruth Girardo founded in Philadelphia 18 years ago, is also beneficiary of the campaign. Her daughter Angie Girardo, in charge of the restaurant and its marketing, told Elizabeth Estrada of PBS public radio that they are prepared to receive orders. ” If nobody picks up the phone and makes the order then you’re not surviving. We’ll just continue pushing through and hopefully, stay open because the bills don’t stop.”
El Merkury, a Guatemalan food restaurant, was already using social media to promote its menu and keep the business moving.
They have 2644 followers on Instagram. The Dine Latino TakeOut Weekend campaign can expand their reach.
According to Estrada’s report, Sofia Deleon, the business owner of El Merkury, had to make adjustments to adapt the meals for the use of the take-out containers.
On the first weekend of April, when the campaign began, participating restaurants “overwhelmingly reported that they saw revenues increase compared to the previous week, that they attracted new customers and increased social media activity,” according to a press release from the GPHCC.
That’s why the promotion will continue as long as the pandemic is preventing restaurants from fully opening.
“Latinos have a large presence in the restaurant industry, rely heavily on cash, so we are trying to give more support and let them and others know that our business community is not invisible,” Jennifer Rodriguez, president and CEO of the GPHCC told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
This report cites a Pew Research Center survey from mid-March, the month Covid-19 was beginning to hit the United States and the world. According to the survey, Hispanics were more concerned than the rest of the population — up to half of those surveyed — about the threat that the consequences of the pandemic posed to their finances, as well as to their health and their daily lives.
Daniela García, the owner of Café Tinto, one of the bakeries registered in the Dine Latino Takeout Weekend campaign, says in The Philadelphia Inquirer piece that the situation has forced businesses to be creative. “It’s taken us to be innovative and rethink the ways we offer our goods, as we keep sharing our colors and flavors with the community.”
Rodriguez said the Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is considering doing a similar campaign with other Latino businesses in the region.
For the time being, according to the press release on their website, the GPHCC and other partners are providing bilingual information to help small businesses affected by COVID-19 recover from the impact of the pandemic.