So it’s something Skipper was working on before COVID. Mac’s hadn’t partnered with a delivery platform. Simply, people had more than one reason to show up to eat. While barbecue is one of those categories that travels better than most, and definitely doesn’t shy away from bulk, Mac’s is an ambiance-driven concept that’s as much about beer and live music as it is food. And truthfully, it probably didn’t need to just yet. The chain, started famously in a former transmission shop, didn’t have a solid model. One of the early day tasks for Skipper was to look at Mac’s to-go operations. He was about two months on the job at Mac’s when the pandemic arrived.īut the brand heard rumblings before. Skipper most recently served as multiconcept brand leader for LMR LLC, a hospitality management company based in Raleigh. “And this is one of those times where we got that chance to do so.” “You never get that chance in life, really,” he adds. “What have we done really well for the last 15 years? What do we need to do better? really gave us a time to do a bit of a reset,” Skipper says. Ahead of new unit growth, introspection was on deck. Amid the intrepid challenges and stream of setbacks, Lee called 2020 the chance “a lot of us had been waiting for.”Īt Mac’s, an eight-unit barbecue brand out of Charlotte, North Carolina, which also oversees SouthBound, The Backstage Lounge, and The Music Yard, there were things that needed to change.
This is something Darden CEO Gene Lee referenced back in June. “The pandemic, in some ways, helped Mac’s.” “I’ll be frank,” says Skipper, a former VP of operations at Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group who joined the brand in January 2020. More than a year removed from dining-room closures and the COVID-19 chaos that followed, the pandemic cleared perspective for the barbecue concept. Company president Shang Skipper and Mac’s Speed Shop have had a chance to catch their breath.
0 kommentar(er)
