In the last few years, food delivery—from groceries and takeout to even afternoon tea on the go—has become not just a luxury for Americans, but rather a convenient way of life to get delicious fare dispatched to your doorstep within hours. Gone are the days of having to leave the comfort of your own home to savor bites from beloved restaurants and tearooms. The significant rise of deliverable food in recent times, including scones, came serendipitously, and miraculously for some businesses, when it was needed the most—in the year 2020 and the beginning of the global pandemic. “Prior to COVID-19, we were primarily a traditional tearoom relying on foot traffic,” explains Erika Shanoff of Erika’s Tea Room. “In the beginning of COVID, we had to figure out how to survive this. Scone and gift bundles took off very quickly, and our scone subscriptions have been very lucrative.” As the pandemic took the world by storm, many tearoom owners and scone retailers were forced to pivot and reinvent the wheel to pay their bills and their employees, and the humble scone came to the rescue.
