On March 20, Goodcents launched their Stock The Fridge promotion as a response to the fallout from COVID-19. Goodcents has been a neighborhood deli for over 30 years, fresh slicing their meats and cheeses by hand in the restaurant as well as baking their proprietary soft bread twice daily. Goodcents also recently began making single-serve Goodcents To Go meals, with options like Southern-Style Meatloaf and Chicken Pesto Tortellini, fresh every morning and stocking them in a convenient cooler so they’re ready for guests’ refrigerators. With grocery stores running low on basic necessities but filling up with people, Goodcents felt they needed to provide an affordable, safe alternative to getting some meal-time staples. They began selling meats and cheeses for $5 a pound, Goodcents To Go meals for $5 each and their signature soft loaves of bread for $0.75 each.
On April 5, the Goodcents Foundation announced the Pay It Forward program. This program gives guests the ability to purchase extra pounds of meat and cheese at checkout to then be delivered to local charities. The foundation has partnered with 13 nonprofits in the varying Goodcents trade areas, to assure local donations stay local. “We have received an overwhelmingly positive response, but one response we had not accounted for was the desire of our guests to purchase some of these goods for a neighbor in need,” said Stacy Glazer, Executive Director of the Goodcents Foundation. “We were surprised but proud, and we felt the need to facilitate this goodwill to the best of our abilities.”
This pandemic was not something any restaurateur was prepared for. Closing lobbies, procedural alterations, fluctuating availability of products, many new challenges reared their heads. But, Goodcents knew, no matter the challenge, if their locally owned businesses supported their guests in an honest and affordable way, they would come out on the other side of this stronger. And thus far they have. Goodcents has experienced comp system sales that outperform the industry average by 2-3X. They even have restaurants posting positive comp sales! Chief Marketing Officer Arielle Long-Seabra said, “We are inexplicably grateful for our hardworking Goodcents crews knocking it out of the park by continuing to uphold our cleanliness and freshness standards and for our loyal Goodcents guests and their response, and we feel proud of what we have been able to accomplish thus far. We can’t wait to see what we can continue to do together in the future.”
As of April 28, 2020, the Pay It Forward program has resulted in over 2,630 pounds of meat and cheese being delivered to area nonprofits. To see all of the options available in the Stock The Fridge and Pay It Forward promotions, visit order.goodcentssubs.com.
Jami Bond is the Director of Franchise Development for Goodcents. For more information on Goodcents, click here.