You may have to skip that lunchtime burrito today: Moe’s in Market Square is closing for a three-month renovation. But when they reopen, franchise owner Mike Geiger tells us he aims to offer the “fastest, freshest lunch experience in Downtown.”
The tiny 1,500-square-foot restaurant, open since 2008, is often packed at midday. They’re now expanding to fill the entire building, with a full façade renovation and twice as much indoor seating. But the key is this: They’re also creating a separate entrance on Forbes Avenue and a separate food service operation for mobile and online customers.
The Moe’s app, with a recent redesign that includes one-touch ordering, has been popular with customers at nine other locations in the region. But fewer Market Square customers used the app, probably because the wait for pickup, Geiger says, “was like fighting upstream.”
Come springtime, the new entrance will offer mobile and online customers their own area, with a salsa bar for customizing meals and a Coca-Cola Freestyle touchscreen soda fountain. To speed things along, Geiger says, that area will have “its own separate build line, so fulfilling online orders doesn’t impact the in-house customer experience.”
The larger Market Square-facing dining room will still offer an open-air experience in warm weather. And lunchtime people-watching won’t be diminished: The new mobile pickup area will be in full view of the dining room.
It’s been “an exhaustive process of laying out the design,” Geiger says, but worth it. Moe’s took a similar approach at their Robinson location, which reopens Friday.