What are you doing to support restaurants during Covid19?

Travel, Wine Tourism, and Restaurants Forum
21

Lots of (now curbside) take out and delivery. They have got to be struggling. I’ve talked to some beer/wine/liquor reps who are freaking out as well.

22

We are doing a weekly donation to a series of restaurant worker support efforts. Each week we are having a designated special and 20% of the proceeds will go to the designated group. We’ll continue to post those on the Quarantine Relief forum.

Another group being hit hard are the farmers who normally supply restaurants and now have nowhere to sell their crops.

Locally, some have started ad hoc CSA’s, and our team is buying from them and encouraging others to do so as well…

23

We don’t eat out often but during this time, we are ordering from some of our favorite restaurants every week although we eat out much less than that. If we can help our favorites stay alive, we will.

24

I’m big on trying to help my local spots.
We are getting takeout every 4 nights and staying local. We’re tipping more than usual.
I will buy some gift cards for various places.
I am going to negotiate with my nearest good place and see if they will give me free corkage for the next “X” amount of time (maybe two years) for an up-front payment.
I am also going to negotiate for a couple of them to do a private dinner at my house after things settle down. I’ll cover the cost of the supplies later, and pay for the service now.
On our area NextDoor site I have been holding some raffles of basic bottles, as in $25ish retail. I give anyone that goes to a particular place for take-out over a 4-5 day period (meeting a $25 tab threshold) an entry, and then pick a winner of the bottle.
I’ve tried to help get a few spots deals with the city to provide the senior/disabled delivered meals which the city is sponsoring.

25

My wife is a large account on-premise wine/liquor rep. She’s probably 85% Commission. No one is buying anything, and for the first two weeks people were actually returning stuff which equates to a negative. There are people selling wine and cocktails, but they are just working through whatever they have. Even when bars and restaurants are allowed to re-open, the game will have changed. Plenty will be bankrupt or will owe money and thus be a credit problem. People will be slow to spend time in crowded settings, and a lot of people will not have the desire to spend.

26

We have 2 restaurants in town that are open for takeout. I am buying from both of them even though we rarely eat out in normal times. I wouldn’t ordinarily tip for take-out but I am tipping generously right now.

27

Not too much . Many of our favorites closed up early (Asian) and we are trying to limit contact (Interpesonal, and multiple bags, containers, etc.). Plus with no commute, cooking at hone is way easier now.

28

I have posted multiple articles in the main coronavirus threads on this subject, all to the same point. While “no current evidence of transmission” is not the same as “it’s never happened,” you have to get food from someplace and I don’t see this as more or less risky than buying at Whole Foods (where we’ve had several workers test positive in the last week locally).

As George says, you can minimize the likely-minimal threat further by re-plating/reheating/washing hands. We do this every Saturday, just as we used to eat out every Saturday. We’ve had some outstanding meals; last night’s was not great. I think some chefs at nicer restaurants who have never done take out are learning what that entails; it is not just putting what you’d ordinarily make in a box

29

Personally, while it’s hard tp amortize the exposure across the multiple meal uses achieved at the grocery store, I consider going to the big grocer by far my largest risk. Maybe it’s worse here in a huge city, but there are all sorts of exposure of opportunities there.

30

Woohoo! Restaurants in GA allowed to re-open on Monday, April 27, after nail salons, barbers, gyms, and tattoo parlors on Friday. This weekend I am getting a haircut, tattoo, leg day at the gym and going out for sushi Monday night [wink.gif] [tease.gif]

31

I thought you were talked out of Monday night sushi?

32

Dennis–don’t know if you’re joking or not, but anyone contemplating spending time in a restaurant, gym, or the like might want to read this article:

The research paper it’s based on is short and not technical, so go for that too if you’re for it. The main takeaway for me is that spending an hour in a resto near an asymptomatic but infected person is definitely enough to get you infected. Covid emptor.

33

Peter. I was joking.

34

OK. I figured you were, but wasn’t sure.

In any case, stay well down there. Bet my boots there will be a tremendous surge of cases in GA in 2-3 weeks. Sorry you will have to live through such challenges, esp when they’re due to stupidity and nothing more.

35

See if Dennis was Grand Cru he would be able to avail himself of the sarcasm font. Right Todd?

36

Pretty devastating piece from Gabrielle Hamilton in NyTimes today:

On the night before I laid off all 30 of my employees, I dreamed that my two children had perished, buried alive in dirt, while I dug in the wrong place, just five feet away from where they were actually smothered. I turned and spotted the royal blue heel of my youngest’s socked foot poking out of the black soil only after it was too late.

For 10 days, everyone in my orbit had been tilting one way one hour, the other the next. Ten days of being waterboarded by the news, by tweets, by friends, by my waiters. Of being inundated by texts from fellow chefs and managers — former employees, now at the helm of their own restaurants but still eager for guidance. Of gentle but nervous pleas from my operations manager to consider signing up with a third-party delivery service like Caviar. Of being rattled even by my own wife, Ashley, and her anxious compulsion to act, to reduce our restaurant’s operating hours, to close at 9 p.m., cut shifts.

37

We’re helping restaurants sell wine. We’re in a lot of restaurants nationwide but we just came out this morning with Commander’s Palace (Wine Spectator Grand Award restaurant). New Orleans has been one of the hardest hit because of the tourism heavy economy.
PM me, check out Commander’s Palace’s instagram page or their website.
Disclaimer - we charge them 1% of sales to cover the costs we incur for all the smaller businesses on our platform. If you have a problem with this, please let us know and we can donate it to the restaurant on your behalf.

38

David,

Do we have to go to the restaurant to access the wine? How does that part work?

39

Hi!
You buy it online, and you either pick it up or some restaurant will deliver within some radius. Each restaurant explains it on its Somm.ai page. Please direct any questions to me on specifics (which restaurants deliver to your address, for example), I will answer them promptly.

40

One of our favorite little BYOBs just reopened for takeout and delivery (in time for Mother’s Day) - we ordered several days worth of meals and will probably do so for the next few weeks. The restaurant is so small that the owner is optimistic that he can achieve something close to normal volume (without some of the costs of linens, etc.).