Photo courtesy of Don’s Diner & Cocktails
As businesses creatively retool their operations during the pandemic, Don’s Diner & Cocktails has become a grocery and liquor store. There, people can still order takeout food from a slimmed down version of the restaurant’s menu, or pick up cocktail kits, beer, bottles of wine or spirits, pasta, sauce, soup, broth, produce and paper goods.
Sean Wille, director of marketing and public relations for Stand Eat Drink Hospitality Group, which owns Don’s Diner & Cocktails, Movida and Hotel Madrid, says one of the group’s original partners, Andrei Mikhail, had lived in Spain and still maintains contact with people in Europe. Through them, he got a sense of the upcoming pandemic and started preparing for it. Once bars and restaurants here were ordered closed except for carry-out and delivery, the group quickly pivoted operations to ensure employees and customers have a place to return in the post-pandemic world.
Don’s Diner & Cocktails had been warmly received by the Walker’s Point community since opening in 2018, Wille says, so they wanted to be there for the community by providing a place to get basic necessities. “In the early days of the pandemic, with the toilet paper fiasco, and no soap or hand sanitizer, those things were missing in action. We had access to that through our restaurant distributor, so that supply was an ability for us to get those products and necessities to people looking for them.”
Carpentry-savvy staff members constructed shelving units. They spent hours on the phone ordering supplies and adjusting to a new inventory system. Within three days, Don’s Diner & Cocktails became Don’s Grocery & Liquor. “Everybody took the ball and ran with it,” Wille remarks. During the first few days of opening Don’s Grocery & Liquor, everyone received a roll of toilet paper with their purchase.
Operating as a Walker’s Point Bodega
Wille says that bodegas are common throughout larger cities around the world. “It’s a model we were able to replicate,” he says. The takeout menu features favorites such as the traditional Wisconsin Friday fish fry. For those who want the full Sconnie experience at home, Don’s offers a brandy old fashioned cocktail kit for people to enjoy with their fish fry. There’s also a margarita kit, and they started posting sangria-making lessons online. The “crazy shakes” are milkshakes served with a mini bottle of liqueur or spirits. New crazy shake recipes are developed weekly.
The grocery shelves are stocked with beer, wine, liquor, broth, pasta, tomato sauce and pantry staples for making dinner at home. Curbside pickup is encouraged, but customers can shop at the store from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The staff refers to the Center for Disease Control for protocols, such as wearing masks during handoffs for delivery. They sanitize four times daily and wipe down doorknobs and handles, and they limit guests to no more than 10 people at a time.
Helping Frontline Workers
The retooling of Don’s Diner & Cocktails has been well received, and Stand Eat Drink may implement a permanent grocery and liquor store going forward. They also merged the Movida and Hotel Madrid kitchens to offer a condensed menu of takeout food in individual and family sized portions or take-and-bake or take-and-make meal kits.
Movida recently added the Cheap and Delicious pop-up menu, featuring $5 vegetarian, beef or chicken noodle dishes. Cocktail kits, or $1 beers or sodas can be added on. There’s also an option to donate meals to frontline workers or purchase an individual meal for another person through the Cheap and Delicious Noodle Shop, movidamke.com.
Wille praised the community support he’s seen for local businesses and those on the frontlines. “Once we opened up Don’s Grocery & Liquor, we had a tremendous outpouring of support, and the community wanted to donate meals to frontline workers and do what they could to help other people,” he explains. “We want to provide something in a time where people need something cheap, delicious and comforting, and that gives us an avenue for people to donate these meals.”
For more information, visit donsmke.com.
