A food truck in New York | Gary He/Eater
From the Editor: Some uplifting stories from the past week
This post originally appeared on March 21, 2020 in Amanda Kludt’s newsletter “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world each week. Read the archives and subscribe now.
A week and a half ago, a restaurateur told one of our editors here that this was going to be worse than 9/11 for the industry. We thought hewas fearmongering. Turns out it was an understatement.
I’m going to assume that you, like me, are fairly caught up on how devastating this is. That the industry is staring down the barrel of a $225 billion revenue hit and 5 million to 7 million jobs lost. That a bailout is in order. That a significant number of small businesses are done for good. I’ll refrain from linking to the 100-plus news stories on Eater of the shutdowns and layoffs and calls for government support and lists of ways to help and delivery stories, because they are farily omnipresent on the local and national sites.
Instead, I’m simply going to highlight a list of stories of generosity and ingenuity. These are the stories that emerge in every crisis that this restaurant world has faced — from Katrina to Sandy, the wildfires to 9/11. Because more often than not, people get into hospitality to connect with and serve others, to build a community.
It seems that every day the unthinkable becomes the likely. And every day I read a new story about someone stepping up. My favorites are below.
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Jill Collins PR/Hook Hall
- Hook Hall’s assembly line of care kits | Jill Collins PR/Hook Hall
- Nancy Silverton in LA and Hook Hall and chef Ed Lee in D.C. transformed their restaurants into resource centers for hospitality workers in need, providing hot to-go meals and staples like toilet paper, diapers, wipes, and more.
- A bunch of restaurants in LA, D.C., New Orleans, and Seattle are providing food to children who rely on free school lunch.
- Musang in Seattle and José Andrés’s collection of restaurants are now “community kitchens,” linking up with nonprofits to feed their communities in need.
- Restaurants across the Bay Area, Austin, Seattle, New York, and Washington, D.C. are providing food to emergency medical professionals, firefighters, other emergency workers, and nonprofits.
- An Orange County barbecue spot is making 1,500 free meals for unemployed restaurant workers (available via drive-thru) this weekend.
- Some places, like Jojo food truck in Portland, are just giving away free food period.
- Distilleries across America are using their high-proof alcohol to make sanitizing solution.
- Meanwhile, Chris Shepherd’s Southern Smoke Foundation is going into overdrive to help the restaurant industry during the pandemic. And his is just one of many, many, many nonprofits stepping up in this time.
- Unrelated to the above, here are two random stories that made me smile. On the pivoting front: D.C.’s Pitango Gelato is delivering whole, bone-in legs of imported prosciutto di Parma for $300. Meanwhile, the Franklin BBQ in-person line is now a Franklin BBQ car line.
This week on the podcast
Daniel and I discuss the current state of the industry, less-than-generous restaurant partners (ahem, Grubhub), publicists pitching “pandemic pantry” items, and how we’re feeling in our respective quarantines (him: lonely, me: overwhelmed).
And if you do want to help
The list of nonprofits, venmos, and GoFundMes overwhelms. So if you do want to give, I recommend thinking about all of your favorite places in your neighborhood, the places you rely on and want to be there on the other side of this. See what they’re posting on their social accounts. Otherwise, go with the established nonprofits who have been here before and know how to distribute resources en mass.
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