During pandemic shutdown, Mooyah increases its Texarkana customer base

Sarah Harvey, left, general manager of Mooyah Texarkana, works on the lunch rush with Star Moya. Harvey says that after those first two weeks of the shutdown, customers began lining up for their burgers. She believes that among other things, the shutdown made customers want to try new things.
Sarah Harvey, left, general manager of Mooyah Texarkana, works on the lunch rush with Star Moya. Harvey says that after those first two weeks of the shutdown, customers began lining up for their burgers. She believes that among other things, the shutdown made customers want to try new things.

Customers fill the dining room - within social distancing limits - while others pull up to get their orders.

Sarah Harvey, general manager of Mooyah of Texarkana, works steadily with her crew to get the meals to them, handing them over in bags rather than the customary trays. Like all restaurants, Mooyah has adapted to the current operating environment and has found that customers took the opportunity to try new things.

Now their fan base is bigger than ever.

"We have many new customers who discovered us during the shutdown," Harvey said. "When it first happened, things were dead the first two weeks, to the point where we were starting to wonder whether we would be able to stay in business."

After that, customers started flowing to them, using their online ordering app and coming up to order curbside.

"After that time of being stuck at home, I think folks wanted to get out of the house," she said. "And I think this made them want to try things they may not have tried before."

The dining room has reopened - though with the required spacing limits.

"We held off on opening the dining room until we could open at 50% capacity," Harvey said. "Seventy-five percent is now coming available, but with the size of our dining room, we will just hold at 50% until things have settled down a bit more. We aren't quite there yet."

But its menu of down-home burgers is there, and they are as good as ever.

"They are coming for them, and it seems the most popular remains the Mooyah double cheeseburger, all you could want in meat and cheese stacked between two buns," Harvey said.

She believes big signs they put up helped draw traffic and let folks know they were still in business.

"We are grateful to our community for stepping up to help us get through," she said. "They are still doing so."

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