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COVID-19: Top Chefs Respond

Chef Naomi Pomeroy, Chef Ian Boden, Chef Gabriel Kreuther

COVID-19 is impacting the US economy and has a devastating effect on Chefs and the restaurant industry.
Early on, people started to cancel their dinner plans, then they favored grocery versus take-out and finally a lot of restaurants were ordered to close and many closed because of no income.
I have three guests today:
Naomi Pomeroy, based in Portland, Oregon, has helped define Portland as one of America’s most culinarily creative cities with her restaurant, Beast.
Ian Boden, located at the foothills of the beautiful Appalachian Mountains, has contributed, with his restaurant The Shack in Staunton, Virginia, to the revival of the Southern cuisine.
Gabriel Kreuther has proven, with his 2 Michelin star restaurant in Manhattan, that the market for fine dining remains at a high level.
I have three top Chefs invited them on a panel discussion about COVID-19 as they represent different regions of the US and different restaurant styles.

What we covered in this episode

COVID-19 impact on restaurants

When COVID-19 started, their restaurant reservations drop off first by 40% and finally by 70%.
As they saw reservations dropping off, some restaurant made the call to switch their model and try to pivot to do take out and deliveries.
Chef Ian Boden says: “First, we followed the protocols. If you enter the restaurant, wash your hands. When you leave the restaurant, put on gloves to bring stuff to people at the curbside, sanitize your car if you're doing deliveries. The reality is that we're just spinning wheels. The restaurant wasn’t paying its bills. The staff wasn’t making money. And the anxiety and stress of the whole thing we're bearing down on all of us.”
Chef Gabriel Kreuther says: “The hardest thing was to make those personal phone calls to people that worked with me for twenty, fifteen, ten, eight years, that we are forced to close and temporarily have to lay them off.”

COVID-19 impact beyond restaurants

Chef Naomi Pomeroy: “So many restaurants are connected to so many purveyors. We all have a community network that goes way beyond even just our family. One of the biggest and most difficult things is knowing that the chain is pretty long of people that are getting affected by this.”
Chef Ian Boden: “The supply chain is huge. We also deal with reps. Virginia is a wine country, and all of those local wineries are struggling now.
Chef Gabriel Kreuther: “There are also so many people that are struggling to get an every day meal on the table. So in New York City, all the restaurants worked with Harvest City and other charities to handle all the food.”

Thoughts on early stage of government support

The three Chefs reacts to Chef David Chang's statement in the NY Times “Without government intervention, there will be no service industry in the future.”
On the current (mid-March 2020) support from the government about COVID-19, the three Chefs stated that it was not even close to sufficient.
Chef Naomi Pomeroy: “It's really like a small Band-Aid. There is a strong argument to be made for the fact that CIVID-19 is physical damage and that insurances should be accountable for that. Another thing that we are fighting for is tax breaks.”
“We're trying to educate people in Washington, educate the general public that if you want to have these unique and special restaurants around, we have to have a bailout.”
Chef Gabriel Kreuther: “These closings are not made by choice, they are mandated. And I believe that when the government comes and mandates you to close, they have to have a plan to make you survive.”
The three top Chefs agree: “It's about leadership from the top down. And, if we don't have leadership on the federal level, the local level is useless.Then at the same time if it's not coming from the top, top-down, then maybe it needs to come from our representatives in Congress and our Senators.”

Link to the podcast episode on Apple Podcast

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The restaurant business, it’s a family. We are spending more time with the people who work with us than with our own family. And It's really heartbreaking to see the way everything went down and with no end in sight.

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The chain of distribution for restaurants is long. And we have really committed relationships with these people. And I don't want to see some small farmers not able to survive.

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If there is no government intervention, the fall out will be huge.

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People believe that because you are a Chef you must be rolling in the dough. The truth is that no matter how big or small your operation is, nobody is getting rich.

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If a business-minded person looked at our [restaurant] business models, they would all say, hey, you should shut down. This is not good business.

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We're trying to educate people in Washington, educate the general public that if you want to have these unique and special restaurants around, we have to have a bailout.

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These closings that we have not by choice, they are mandated. And I believe that when the government comes and mandates you to close, they have to have a plan to make you survive.

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Restaurants are the DNA, the social fabric of a neighborhood, of society.

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You don't prepare for anything like this [COVID-19] as an industry. You prepare for this as a country.

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Restaurants are made for going out and having a good time and doing celebrations. Meeting people. It's the social fabric. I believe that there is a place for us in the future to do what we do.

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