Knoxville-centric company tosses local ham in the frying pan
Prologue
There is an underappreciated scene in Frank Capra’s Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” that ends up being pivotal to understanding ‘George Bailey Syndrome,’ or why people stay in a challenging situation to fight for their organization or community rather than take the obvious and tempting choice to bail out.
Mr. Potter knows that the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan is living on a prayer as usual, but he is losing tenants left and right to their more community-minded lending and building approach. He attempts to counter that by luring a desperate George with an offer of a job with him as his right-hand man in the slumlord business – for several times his annual pay.
“You and I were the only ones who didn’t lose our heads,” Potter says of their respective business acumens during the Great Depression. But he means something different than what that ends up meaning to George Bailey. Potter means he never lost sight of exploiting people and turning the next trick.
By taking advantage of his heaven-sent second chance, George ostensibly bucks that thinking and plans to continue on, not losing his own head, by continuing to steadily help his community.
Act I
In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit restaurants and bars immediately and brutally. Unable to open except for to-go orders and briefly without the ability to sell alcohol, many restaurants were sent reeling, having to drastically cut hours and furlough workers. PPP loans, limited outdoor seating and to-go alcohol initiatives helped, but they were slow coming for some and difficult to apply for to all.
Local hospitality and entertainment industry folks like Attack Monkey Productions’ Chyna Brackeen and local attorney and entrepreneur Haseeb Qreshi spent a lot of time educating themselves, and then their peers and colleagues, on how to navigate the system. Progressive local server Jade Cunningham and her mother created Knoxville Service Industry United to raise funds for un- and under-employed service industry workers.
However strongly Knoxville’s local industry professionals swam against the rising tide, though, it continued to flood, swallowing up businesses left and right and forcing others to make tough moral decisions about how to reopen in the months-long, gray-area gap between official’s push to reopen the state and the widespread availability and administration of vaccines and subsequent CDC-guideline adjustments.
According to reports in industry publications and major financial outlets like the Wall Street Journal that came out throughout the pandemic, as many as 2 to 5 million hospitality and service industry workers found themselves out of work or underemployed over the past year and a half in America.
Act II
Then inspiration struck for a couple of local restaurant-industry veterans.
“During the pandemic lockdown of 2020, my wife [Amber] and I tried to have our favorite local restaurants delivered to us,” LoCo founder John Pfohl explains, describing the genesis of the company that at that point they had yet to start. “We had hoped that this was a way to support the friends we had made during our many years in the hospitality business here in Knoxville and the hardships a lockdown would produce for the owners and staff.”
However, Pfohl says they were quickly disheartened at the lack of customer service involved with the major delivery brands like DoorDash and GrubHub, and their local restaurateur friends were having a rough time with the sizable cut those businesses took for rendering their services.
“After a little research and speaking with a few of our friends who were owner/operators of the establishments, it was apparent that the third-party food-delivery system was broken,” Pfohl says. “While the national brands were thriving on their increase in profits due to the necessity of delivery during lockdown, the restaurants were held captive to the predatory nature of the large third-party services. There needed to be an option … and why not one where the restaurants actually have ownership?”
The couple met with old friends throughout the local industry who felt positive about the idea; as a result, Pfohl says, “we jumped.”
Act III
It turns out LoCo was the perfect thing for its time and place, marrying the convenience that larger companies were able to offer pandemic-shy customers with the personal touch, relationships and buy-in from the best locally owned spots all over town.
“I was contacted by John Pfohl about the service and was excited about a local delivery option,” says Aaron Nelson of Union Place in Bearden. “The service charge is much lower, and the customer service is unbelievable. It’s so nice to call and have someone local on the line.”
“’Local’ is precisely the heart of LoCo delivery service,” says Gina Truitt of Boyd’s Jig & Reel in the Old City. “LoCo is by restaurants, for restaurants, for you!” She takes care to namedrop dispatcher Eric Lykins for his smooth on-the-go menu/order alterations, as well as the staff of restaurant pros who care about the local restaurant community. “We are proud to be in the company of other small, locally owned businesses who are working together as a team to bring reliable, quality delivery to Knoxville,” Truitt adds. “With LoCo, we are truly all in this together.”
Act IV
In Chuck Palahniuk’s seminal Gen-X novel “Fight Club,” the character Tyler Durden (depicted in the film version by Brad Pitt) says of wage workers as his anarchist followers pinion a fancy gala-goer, “We’re everyone you depend on. We’re the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you’re asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers and we know everything about you.”
The service industry is a vital part of a vibrant community full of stellar hotels, restaurants, bars and music and special-events venues, and they have been hurting. The opportunity to get more work – and to get it helping out local small businesses and their fellow service workers – turned out to be an alluring prospect.
The dispatchers and drivers for LoCo and its participating restaurants are all invested emotionally (and financially, in some cases, through a share buying option) in the future of the business, Pfohl says, attributing a profit-sharing model that distributes the rewards back into the local restaurant community rather than sending it to Silicon Valley developers or Madison Avenue marketers.
Epilogue
The pandemic is not officially over, but increasing vaccination rates and the return of sunny weather has a stir-crazy general public ready to flood the service sector once again. But for many, a hybrid lifestyle that includes a lot of food delivery will be a permanent adaptation to modern life.
Where will LoCo fall in that mix when all is said and done?
The app (which is available via the App Store, Google Play Store or online at locoknoxville.coop) went live on January 20, 2021. “Everything so far has been word of mouth and organic [non-paid] social media posts” Pfohl says, but there will be an official grand opening of the business this fall.
“Knoxville’s chefs, restauranteurs, staff, customers and food scene in general [are] amazing and deserve the best in all facets of service,” Pfohl says. “We hope that Knoxville sees LoCo as the only delivery service worth using.”
So far, the strategy seems to be working, with satisfied customers according to online reviews and a growing list of member restaurants including dozens of local favorites. Check the complete roster on the app or at locoknoxville.coop
luke@blanknews.com
