Earlier this month, Carvel—the ice cream chain that invented soft serve in 1934—announced plans to redesign its 350 stores. It wasn’t exactly a surprising development.

Like any retail establishment that’s been around a long time (Carvel turns 90 next year), periodic store refreshes are standard procedure. When Carvel’s prototype opens in Gainesville, Fla., early next year, customers who wander inside will see new colors, digital menu boards, a spruced-up seating area, and a new soft-serve machine that offers eight flavors.

“Almost anytime you upgrade a shop, you see a lift in sales,” chief brand officer Jim Salerno told Adweek. “It’s always exciting for the guests to have something new.”

But one of the added elements is about more than just a periodic update. A new freezer case will stand at the ready for customers who’ve already ordered online and are coming just to pick up their orders and leave. Takeout traffic now makes up a sizable percentage of Carvel’s business. And if it hadn’t been for Covid-19, Carvel probably wouldn’t have so many customers who want it—and the brand probably wouldn’t have needed that new freezer case.

“What we learned from the pandemic was we had a pretty good delivery business—it increased significantly during Covid, and that, for the most part, has remained,” Salerno said. “So it was good timing for us.”

Carvel has plenty of company. In recent weeks, several national restaurant chains have either announced store redesigns or begun implementing plans that have been on the drawing board for a year or more. For these brands, not only did Covid-19 change the consumption patterns of their customers, but the emergence from three years of pandemic conditions has also furnished the optimal timing for design changes that cater to them.

Restaurant brands “are coming out of Covid, so that’s encouraging them to look at what they are currently doing in today’s market,” observed John Stanton, who teaches food marketing at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. “They’re watching the way customers change—and change to be consistent with their new behavior.”

The temporary is now permanent

Specifically, that new behavior means an increase in to-go orders. According to the National Restaurant Association’s 2023 State of the Restaurant Industry report, 60% of restaurateurs say that takeout makes up a larger percentage of their sales than it did in 2019. Polling more than 380,000 restaurants, the same report revealed that what had been a “pandemic pivot” toward takeout and delivery has now become “permanent.”

On Aug. 15, Wendy’s cut the ribbon on the first two of its “Global Next Gen” restaurants, which opened in Kansas and Oklahoma. Markedly different from the burger chain’s 7,000 existing locations with their red corner pillars and honey-colored wood siding, the locations contain the most dramatic changes inside, where the emphasis is clearly on taking out instead of dining in. Larger, dual-sided galley kitchens can serve up 50% more food, much of it destined for a dedicated pickup window. There are also self-service kiosks and shelves for customers to fetch their orders and leave.

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