SAYING GOODBYE TO THE DRIVE TO

May 26, 2020

When the clock strikes 1:00pm on Saturday, we’ll flip the electronic Drive Thru sign to “Closed” one last time at the Summit Drive To and close up shop, after our 70th day of service.

You don’t ordinarily open a business with the intent to close it after 10 weeks. For most businesses, it takes twice that long just to figure out its identity, its flow of operations, its staffing model. But this wasn’t an ordinary idea, and these aren’t ordinary times.

Ten weeks ago, we were digging through seat cushions for ideas (figuratively, of course, though if there were ideas to be had by searching in my sofa I probably would have done that, too).  Ideas on how to stay open, how to keep jobs, how to operate during a global pandemic. Ideas for how to be Summit, essentially, in these unordinary times.

When we made the initial call to the developer, the owner of the Famous Toastery franchise, I didn’t even expect a call back, let alone a “yes.” And then when that “yes” came, I certainly anticipated the Town of Davidson to knock down the idea — Summit, trying to open the town’s first ever food “drive thru,” with about 72 hours notice? Truth be told, I was met with a no. A direct, final, “Unfortunately we cannot allow Summit to set up at the Wells-Fargo drive-through site.”

What did we do? We met that no with more cold calls, trying to lobby anyone and everyone in the town to understand what we were trying to do — save jobs, serve the community, add some fun headlines to a time full of the inverse. That no ultimately changed to a yes, thanks to some really great people at the TOD. Truthfully, I have never been one to push back, but when the alternative is telling most of your staff they no longer have jobs, it’s not much of a decision.

So, 9 1/2 weeks later, here we sit. North Carolina has moved into Phase 2 of reopening, and we are (very cautiously) optimistic as our patio opens to customers, more regulars become regular again, and daily sales look more “normal” than they have in months.

Where does that leave the Drive To? It’s a memory, one of many in the history of Summit that we’ll recall years from now and share stories about. Most of them are good (Freckled Dog Pub), some of them aren’t (did you know we had a café in Huntersville?).

It’s also more than a memory. The ten weeks we operated a makeshift Drive To in a vacant bank helped save Summit. It made money, it provided jobs, it provided energy to our company and to our community. It forced us to stay creative not stuck, to look forward not down, to evolve not disappear. It allowed Summit to be Summit.

Ten weeks ago, we spent hours developing the very-likely scenario where we closed all cafés, where all revenue dried up, where staff couldn’t bring home a paycheck. It was spelled out in very detailed form, on a whiteboard in my office as Tim, Andrew, Dora and I looked on. I took a photo of that whiteboard, in case it got erased for some reason.

We never needed that photo, we never needed that “Phase 3” as we called it, but just like I will cling to memories of the Drive To and the 50 some-odd Milk Bread Donuts I ate (I feel NO shame), I will keep this photo. It will remind of a worst-case scenario we never met, of a memory we never experienced. Because walking through that exercise made us so ill that we committed to doing anything, everything, to avoid it. Even opening a Drive To location for just 70 days.

Reflecting back to those mid-March days, we committed to “doing whatever it takes” to keep things moving forward. The Drive To, and all the people and pieces that helped make it happen, was what it took.

It’s bittersweet, right? I am sitting in front of Basecamp writing this journal, the first time in 10 weeks that I’ve sat down at the café I have called home for 10 years. There’s energy on Main St., there are more familiar faces and more smiles (though most of them concealed by masks). It’s sweet.

But on Saturday, I will stand and watch that neon sign flip to “Closed” for one last time before the developer knocks it down, turns it into some apartments, and I’ll probably tear up a bit. A Drive Thru concept, developed in 72 hours in a town that doesn’t even allow them, never should have worked. It did, though, and that’s the memory we will cling to — the scores of cars, the tens of thousands of donuts, the immense flexibility and courage of the Summit team.

Of the ten weeks when we stared our worst-case scenario in the face and said, “Not today, not now, not ever.”