John Haas, president and co-founder of M’Tucci’s restaurants, and his team were ready when Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered all restaurants to shut down on March 18 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Haas had been watching restaurants in other states like Ohio and Maryland early on to develop a plan to adjust to the new reality of carry-out and delivery.  He closed his restaurants to dine-in customers on March 17.  What made the transition successful was the tenacity of his team to reset, reorient, and develop a new way of operating.

“I love my team,” said Haas.  “We have such a strong group of chefs and managers in our company, a lot of very smart people.” He said he had to furlough the hourly staff, but retained the managers and chefs who took over the tasks of preparing meals.

“It was a big change, but we are a pretty dynamic group and we were able to change quicker than many others,” Haas said.

There are three M’Tucci’s restaurants –M’Tucci’s Italian in Montano Plaza,  M’Tucci’s Moderno in Rio Rancho, and M’Tucci’s Twenty-Five, which opened three weeks before the statewide closures in March.  Each restaurant has the same menu of items that can be easily prepared. One of the approaches they used to engage customers was to create “meal-prep” kits such as a weekly rotating dinner box and a turtle pecan chocolate brownie kit. The website includes a video of a chef making each dish. 

In order to help the furloughed staff, the managers and chefs have donated more than $60,000 of the tips they earned and have provided more than 800 free meals to the staff who were laid off.  “They had no choice in being furloughed, so it was the right thing to do,” Haas said.  “We work for them, to make their lives better.” 

M’Tucci’s also donated between 300-400 meals to area hospitals, and during National Nurse’s Week, they gave 700 meals to local nurses.

Haas said by March 20, the company had already accepted that nothing would change before May.  He said, “We lost a lot of revenue, but we learned how to be lean.  You learn a lot during times of adversity, and as people, we have the tendency to focus on how hard this time has been.” As a result of the pandemic, Haas said, M’Tucci’s true colors have come out.

“Nothing is ever off of the table for us.  Whatever we have to do to survive and keep going, we will,” he added.  “Nothing is permanent forever and nothing can’t change.  That mindset as a business made changing not seem so crazy.” He added, “We’ve learned a lot about our company, how to be smarter in doing things, and I think we’ll be a much wiser company down the road from it.”

Haas believes that this experience has also helped him better understand the role that restaurants play in people’s lives.  “Not only do we provide food and sustenance for life, but we provide an experience for our guests,” he said.  “The comments that we are getting from our customers about how much they can’t wait to return and dine with us reminds us of the role that we play in the community.”

M’Tucci’s is indeed more than a place to eat.  “I think people want to be taken care of and they come to M’Tucci’s be transported to a different place, to be taken away from their daily life, and be introduced to a new environment,” he said. 

We can’t wait to be transported again.