Fishers pizzeria employing dine-in staff in new ways during quarantine

Fishers Pizzeria employing dine-in staff in new ways during quarantine

FISHERS, Ind. (WISH) — Businesses like a Fishers pizzeria are trying to find new ways to keep their staff employed. Sometimes that involves changing around their job titles a little.

As restaurant dining rooms across the country are shutting down, places like Aurelio’s Pizza are ensuring their employees still get a paycheck. Just how are they doing it? By re-purposing their servers as delivery drivers.

Pizzas are flying into bags as deliveries and carry out orders go through the roof. But the coronavirus measures causing those spikes left many dine-in employees worried about their financial futures.

“I was like ‘Oh my gosh, what am I going to do?’” Aurelio’s Pizza server Tianna Smith said. “I have bills I have to pay, this is paying for me to go back to school. I was super nervous and then luckily, this is such a great company, they’re like ‘We’re going to offer you other hours and other places of the building just to make sure we can try to accommodate everything.’”

Aurelio’s only has about half a dozen servers, so it wasn’t hard to find a place for them as delivery and carry-out staff. But that increased staff means they can also deliver further. The restaurant is now making trips to Avon, Brownsburg and Plainfield if people call ahead.

“The biggest thing is we want to try and take a few orders to make it kind of worth somebody’s drive since it is about 30/40 minutes down there one-way,” assistant manager Morgan Gill said. “So if we can get a few orders in a day then we’re able to take them out there for everybody to enjoy.”

Now, the additional deliveries may not keep up for the entirety of the restaurant quarantine, since it really all depends on demand. Staff says even if it goes on a little longer, they hope to keep everyone employed.

“Deliveries [are] in high demand and carry out, even, we have servers on carry out helping with carry out. Because that has been a little bit busier than normal,” Gill said. “So, like, we’re able to keep them a little bit busier, like that. So hopefully, as long as it keeps up, we’re able to- yes, keep our servers still happy and keep them with jobs.”

While these server-turned-delivery drivers may be getting a paycheck, it might not be what they’re used to in the dining room. So they say they’re hoping tips are able to make up for what they’re losing with the job change.