“On Monday, it was ensuring everyone could evacuate, our payroll offices are making sure all of our employees get paid,” Escobar said. “Right now, the boots on the ground are assessing what’s going to be needed, are the comfort stations needed, are they sending us water, are they sending us clothes, are they sending us food. For some of our areas, they’re waiting still because of this very slow-moving storm.”
The crisis operations team has a full-time core group of five people that swells to about 20 during catastrophic events like Florence, she said. They’re now meeting first thing in the morning and twice again throughout the day since the storm has made landfall, with hourly updates, she said.
The restaurant chain monitors a 200-mile radius around the impacted areas, she said. Unlike other large restaurant chains such as Chipotle and McDonald’s, Cracker Barrel owns all of its Old Country Stores.
“Because we have to be responsible for nearly 700 stores, and more than 70,000 employees, we feel a great responsibility to make sure our employees are taken care of. They rely on our systems and protocols being error-proof to support them to get through these things,” she said.
When Jefferies’ Barish looked at three scenarios for Florence’s possible landfall this weekend, each centered around a different mid-Atlantic city — Wilmington, North Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, and Virginia Beach, Virginia. Given the projection for high inland rains and flooding, Barish created a 175-mile radius around each city and determined how many restaurants from each chain were placed in these areas.
Bojangles’, known for its chicken and biscuits, has about 83 percent of its restaurants located in states directly in the hurricane’s path.
Barish estimates that about 31 percent of Bojangles’ locations would be in danger if the storm hits Wilmington, 20 percent if it hits Charleston and about 16 percent if it makes landfall near Virginia Beach. Bojangles’ spokesman Brian Little did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Outback Steakhouse posted a note on its website, advising customers that hours may vary in locations impacted by the storm.
Cracker Barrel’s crisis operations response team has its emergency planning down to military precision, which is no coincidence considering CEO Sandy Cochran is a former Army captain and its team includes several former soldiers.
“Unfortunately we do it often. It’s like a checklist. No one is sitting around wondering what are we going to do, everyone knows,” Escobar said. “Obviously every storm is different. In that preplanning, it’s a pretty smooth process.
Watch: Looking at the Waffle House Index as Florence nears the Carolina coast
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