Frances Allen was hired as CEO of Tampa's Checkers and Rally's. Three weeks later, coronavirus had the U.S. in its grip.

Frances Allen had barely settled in as CEO of Checkers and Rally's when the coronavirus pandemic abruptly shut down much of the U.S. economy.

Allen, a veteran of the restaurant world, officially took the helm at the Tampa-based fast-food chain on Feb. 18 — the first woman to ever hold the top job at Checkers and Rally's. On March 11, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus a pandemic; two days later, Florida schools said they would close for at least two weeks to slow the virus' spread.

Before retreating to her home in Colorado — she hasn't yet relocated to Tampa — Allen was able to do her store training at a Checkers in Clearwater.

"I would not be equipped to really handle the challenge had I not experienced that," Allen said. "We just squeaked that one in, and I visited a couple markets the following week, but already, we were in crisis mode."

Checkers and Rally's have donated $100,000, enough for 1 million meals, to No Kid Hungry, which provides meals for children in need.

"Checkers is a working class brand — we operate in, generally speaking, low-income communities, and we think of ourselves as families serving families," Allen said.

The chain has 900 units in 28 states and the District of Columbia.

A franchisee in New Jersey whose business has been down significantly since the outbreak is keeping employees busy by supporting health care workers, giving 200 meals to a community medical center — "160 apple pies and 200 sandwiches, all at his cost," Allen said — and distributing 5,000 coupons to emergency workers. Another franchisee in Alabama is providing free meals to any child who asks for one.

"I could not be prouder of them, and I couldn't be prouder of the crews and staff that turn out every day to work," she said. "We’re able to shelter in place, and they’re getting in their cars every day and going to work and feeding the public, and we’re inspired by them."

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Checkers and Rally's

Allen spoke with the Tampa Bay Business Journal about starting her new role while navigating through coronavirus. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

OK, let’s back up before coronavirus, if we can. What was your top priority for Checkers and Rally’s as CEO?

Well, like any new CEO coming in would, I had a 100-day plan, and I had two weeks really well sketched out with what I wanted to learn. I think it’s really critical to listen and learn for the first four to six weeks. It was to talk to franchisees, and I wanted to meet people at the crew level and tour markets and really hear from guests as well.

So you’re on the job for about three weeks, and the pandemic takes hold. What was your first order of business?

I'd been there three weeks when we officially laid out a response plan. Level one is all about the safety of employees — sanitation procedures, hygiene, putting posters in the stores, anyone that’s sick must go home, giving the communication and awareness out to employees.

Level two was getting ready for business continuity and store closures, and level three was about quarantine — what happens if a region does shut down? We were very well prepared. In week five, we started having daily calls and we’ve been doing that seven days a week ever since. I’ve been in isolation — I haven’t even found a place to live in Tampa, and I’m working remotely in my home in Colorado. That was something we did straight away, was give anyone who can work from the home the ability to do so.

We have two main priorities: We talk every day about how No. 1 is the safety of our guests and employees and things like ensuring they understand the sick pay, so they don’t worry about not coming to work if they are sick. The other priority is keeping the stores open. The restaurant industry serves a huge purpose in this country — [the industry] employs about 15 million people, and most are hourly workers, and it's critical, keeping them employed.

Even though Checkers is limited-service, a lot of business is driven by other travel patterns like commutes, school drop-offs, and so on that aren’t happening right now. How far have sales fallen?

We do benefit from being drive-thru only, and we have a very comprehensive delivery platform that we rolled out this time last year, so it’s pretty established. Fortunately we’ve been able to continue keeping most of our restaurants open for most hours. To your point, people’s lives have been turned upside down, so we’ve seen a drop-off in traffic. Like most people in the industry, we’re just trying to make sure we cut back in costs and do everything we can — we’re pretty low margin, so it's, 'How do we make sure we’re cash flow positive?'

Have there been layoffs at the corporate headquarters in Tampa?

We haven’t done any layoffs. I will say, we are going to have furlough a very small percentage of people at the head office, but there have been no layoffs at the store level as a result of this. We managed to keep most of our company [owned] stores open and keep people employed.

There are some stores that have to shut down. If you’re in a mall, or we have some restaurants in New York that are dining room only — they’ve had a challenging time.

Have you seen a spike in delivery sales?

Yes, the thing that has been the most marked is the average check has increased. I think people are stocking up. It varies day by day, but the average check increase is offsetting about a third of the traffic decline.

How are you working with franchisees during this time?

Communication, communication, communication. We’re trying to keep them informed as best we can and stay ahead of the local mandates. We have a franchisee relief program — any franchisee experiencing real hardship, they’ve been given royalty relief, and we’ve given all franchisees the opportunity, if they need to, to defer royalty payments. So we’re doing everything we can. We reached out to partners and vendors, and for the most part they’ve been fantastic. Coca-Cola is doing what they can for all of their customers, not just us, and we've gotten pretty reasonable responses from landlords, so I think this whole country knows we’re in this together.

Lightning round