Exciting and IMPORTANT Update for you! :) :) :)

We’ve learned a lot the past few months and to be honest, a large amount of that learning has come from listening to guests just like you. You all have been a well of information that we have been able to tap as a resource when working to make our operations more efficient.

In the past month since we have had indoor operations, we have learned that many of our guests just aren’t ready. We learned this the very first day we were allowed to bring guests back inside and we’ve talked about this with you in a few posts and emails.

I thought that maybe it would fade a little over time but it hasn’t and that’s okay.

At Lucha, we’ve said for a long time that we want to take the stress out of choosing where to eat. We want to do this by offering you and your family food, drinks, and experiences that you can feel good about. We still stand by that. It’s funny though, for the longest time our biggest focus has been on the food and drink part and while those are still important, the stress-free experience has become something that we’ve found ourselves talking about more and more.

As you know, Lucha already has a contact-free curbside program. If you order online we simply hand you a bag of food or set it in your back seat and off you go. We also offer full service inside the restaurant and on the patio.

For those guests we have put even higher sanitation standards in place and we require face masks for all guests when not seated at their table. We have had a positive reaction from our guests but we’ve decided to go a little further.

We’ve decided to make a few changes for indoor dining which will exceed the recommendations made to us by the Winnebago County Health Department and the Illinois Department of Public Health.

We will not seat more than 50 guests in any one of our three indoor seating areas. Each of our three indoor seating areas has its own HVAC units.

Lucha will voluntarily reduce our indoor seating capacity to 50% of approved seating.

While these changes might help some of you make the decision to venture out. We aren’t done yet.

We are very excited to announce that we are offering a third level of service to the two that were previously mentioned. We already have curbside service and full service dine in. We are happy to announce that on Friday we will start offering limited service / limited contact outdoor seating.

If you recall, before we opened our indoor operations we had guests seated around the building on what we called our Terrace. Starting Friday the Terrace will be back.

Our terrace seating is limited service. We have invested in new technology that will allow the guest to order food and drinks directly from their phone.

It’s a simple process with no new apps to download. Rather you scan a QR code and your phone turns into the computer similar to the ones the servers are using.

You can then ring in food and drinks directly to the kitchen and the bar. When they are ready, we’ll bring them out to you and we’ll walk away. Simple as that.

If you’d like some water when you seat yourselves we’ll happily bring it and we’ll clean your table when you’re gone, but other than that we are pretty much leaving you to yourselves - it’s limited contact and it's outside.

You never once have to go inside AND you never have to wait for your server to place your order, get another round or bring your check.

We firmly believe that by adjusting our internal operations to voluntarily limit seating beyond current standards and by adding this third level of service that we can help achieve our goals of taking the stress out of choosing where to eat.

Thank you for your support and we’ll see you this weekend!

Joshua B.