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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Covid-19

Food Tech Show: The ‘Looking for Bright Spots in a Dark Time’ Episode

Needless to say, when you’re talking and writing about coronavirus all the time, you can get a little down.

So on this week’s podcast, we thought we’d focus on some bright spots, highlighting stories of people and companies who are innovating to help others or are just well-positioned to succeed in an otherwise down time.

Finally, a reminder we’re hosting a virtual COVID-19 strategy summit for food and restaurant people on Monday and we’ll be talking to smart people with good ideas for dealing the crisis.

As always, you can listen to the Food Tech Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download it direct to your device or just click play below.

Newsletter: COVID-19 Could Help Us Build a Better Restaurant

Welcome to the first-ever Weekly Spoon newsletter that’s entirely focused on restaurant innovation. That we chose to launch this just as a pandemic is sweeping across the globe is entirely intentional. Of all the food tech sectors out there, none has been hit so hard or will change — forever — as drastically as the restaurant biz.

With that in mind, let’s kick this thing off by not rehashing the gloomy stuff. Instead, let’s highlight some ways in which the current restaurant business meltdown is spurring a ton of initiatives that could make a better overall industry in the long term — if we let it.

The Virtual Tip Jar Will Stick Around

As anyone whose ever waited tables, tended bar, or delivered pizzas knows, tips are an important portion of workers’ incomes. With most bars and dining rooms closed right now, an astounding number of what are basically virtual tip jars have popped up online. We first got wind of this last week, when we came across a site called chatt.us that lets at-home drinkers leave tips for service workers in Chattanooga, Tenn. via Venmo or CashApp. 

A little more digging uncovered more of these virtual tip jars in, well, pretty much every state from Maryland to Idaho. One site in particular, serviceindustry.tips, lets you choose specific cities from a list and direct your funds to workers in that area from a very user-friendly web interface. Others are simple spreadsheet interfaces, though no less popular from the number of entries on some of them.

While these virtual tip jars can’t make up for the lost wages and job layoffs many restaurant workers now face, they could at least provide some aid to those currently struggling.

They could also be a valuable tool for the restaurant industry even when dining rooms re-open. As one restaurant owner explained to me recently, in-house staff prepping the off-premises orders don’t see any of the tips left through third-party ordering platforms. A virtual tip jar could be a way for customers who wanted to hand over a little extra to tip those employees for their work. There are also well-documented issues around tipping delivery drivers in general. Since fewer folks seem to carry cash these days, a virtual tip jar could be a way to bypass that aspect of the platform, thereby making sure it’s the worker who gets the tip — not the tech companies.

Ditto for Contactless Delivery and Payments

Three months ago “contactless delivery” wasn’t even a phrase, at least not in the vernacular sense. In an effort to stem the spread of coronavirus worldwide, what started in China (see above image, courtesy of Yum China) has now quickly caught on. All the major delivery platforms as well as grocery sites like Instacart and individual restaurant chains now either use contactless delivery as the default option or make it clearly available through their apps.

I doubt we’ll revert back to the old method once this horror show is over.

At their most basic, contactless delivery methods as well as contactless payments are just more hygienic. Fewer germs can spread when cash and cards aren’t being handed back and forth over a counter, or when customers and their delivery couriers stand a certain distance apart during a drop-off. I doubt I’m the only person who’s ever ordered delivery while having bronchitis. Contactless delivery would go far in protecting workers — many of whom do not get paid sick leave — from illnesses their customers might be carrying while they’re stuck at home. Vice versa, too.

And if this look into China’s (sort of) newly reopened restaurant scene is anything for the rest of the world to go by, mobile payments will see a boost, too. More customers will be using apps like Apple Pay, CashApp, and Google Pay to avoid constantly handing over a credit card.

Simpler Menus Will Beget Better Service

“Pare down your menu” is a directive I’ve been hearing a lot as restaurants quickly pivot to serving customers through takeout and delivery channels. That means offering only the items that are easy to produce, will travel well, and are ones that customers actually want. 

That’s not breakfast, at least not right now. In a statement this week, McDonald’s announced it was temporarily pulling breakfast items from its menu and will focus on serving its most popular items. Taco Bell also nixed breakfast items for now. More chains are likely to follow.

Of course, these moves are in response to the potentially billions of dollars the restaurant industry will lose over the next few months. I suspect, however, that slimmed down menus could actually improve certain aspects of the restaurant industry, particularly where tech is concerned. Have you ever tried to navigate a Taco Bell self-service kiosk? Finding Waldo inside Google Maps was an arguably easier task.

Smaller menus could also speed up times in the drive-thru, improve AI-powered upsell recommendations, and use fewer ingredients overall, thereby reducing food waste.

In no way am I suggesting that menus need to look like this one from 1973. And who knows? Breakfast and Monster Tacos might go back on the menu at some point. But maybe this strange, unsettling shift in which we now find ourselves can show us that simpler menus leads to better experiences for everyone involved.

Keep on truckin’,

Jenn

Experiential Retailer b8ta Furloughs Workforce, Cuts Corporate Staff Due to Coronavirus

With the exception of grocery, the COVID-19 crisis has hit every retail sector hard as consumers cut back and, in many cases, are forced to stay in due to mandatory shelter-in-place orders.

One of the early casualties of the tsunami is b8ta. The experiential retailer announced this week it would furlough its entire retail workforce and cut its corporate staff in an attempt to weather the storm brought on by coronavirus. The moves, announced in a letter to employees by company CEO Vibhu Norby, were effective last Friday.

In his letter, Norby said furloughed store employees would get paid through March 28 and receive a $1,000 relief checks (part-time employees get $500). Norby also said those corporate employees not laid off would get mandatory pay cuts.

The company’s business consists of both its own flagship retail stores (approximately 25 at the end of 2019) as well as its “retail-as-a-service” platform that powers experiential retail experiences for other retailers such as Macy’s (an investor) and the relaunched Toys R Us.

I’ve always been intrigued by b8ta’s take on retail, which utilizes a model that essentially rents space to product companies (similar to a consignment model) and provides brands granular data about retail customer interactions with their products. Products are often kitchen or food related, such as the Aveine wine aerator or the Hurom slow juicer, and companies such as Thermomix have sometimes used b8ta storefronts as a way to showcase product features and get user feedback.

Norby indicated that b8ta hopes to reopen stores in coming months and welcome back retail employees. The company raised $50 million in funding late last year, so it would appear they have enough of a war chest to weather the coronavirus storm. It’s kinda of a bummer they couldn’t use some of that cash to continue paying its employees past March 28, but it appears the company’s focus is on ensuring its long-term survival by slowing its burn rate through the crisis.

Beyond payroll, the company no doubt has to continue rent payments in upscale retail locations in places such as New York City, San Francisco and Seattle. As well, many of the products sold at b8ta’s own stores are higher-priced, discretionary products, so the company is likely forecasting decreased demand well into 2021 as most consumers deal with financial uncertainty due to the economic fallout from COVID-19.

In a piece of related news, company President and cofounder Phillip Raub announced he would step away from a full-time role at b8ta. He hinted that he has something new he is working on and would share details soon.

Join Us for the COVID-19 Virtual Strategy Summit for Food and Restaurants

During this pandemic that has radically reshaped pretty much everything in our lives in the blink of an eye, we keep coming back to one question here at The Spoon: How can we help?

And so it’s with that in mind that we decided to have a virtual summit to discuss ideas and come up with strategies for navigating the COVID-19 pandemic for the food and restaurant industry.

This virtual summit, called the COVID-19 Strategy Summit for Food & Restaurants, will take place on April 6th and feature experts who can talk to and share perspectives about the operational, business, legal and historical impact that coronavirus is having on the food business. While no one has navigated a worldwide pandemic like COVID-19, we think bringing together some of the industry’s biggest thinkers to share their perspective and some advice, we can maybe help some of those scrambling to figure out this new normal.

The event, which we’re working on with the great people from the Future Food Institute is in just two weeks, and we’ve already assembled some amazing speakers, including:

Chef Mark Brand – Founder of Save-On Meats and creator of the Token Program to feed those in food insecure situations

Sara Roversi – Founder of the Future Food Institute

Paul Freedman, history professor at Yale University and author of American Cuisine: And How It Got That Way

Ryan Palmer – Partner at Lathrop GPM and chair of firm’s Restaurant, Food, and Hospitality group

Dana Gunders – Executive Director of ReFED and recognized expert on the problem of food waste

The event is free to attend and you can register here. We’re using Crowdcast as the platform, which is highly interactive and allows audience members to ask questions share ideas with speakers and other attendees, so make sure to come with questions..

Also, if you are or know a world-class expert on some aspect of the food or restaurant business that could provide hugely valuable to business owners or employees in this new world, we’re still looking for a couple more speakers so drop us a line (no product pitches, please). If you have an idea about how you’d like to support us by getting the world or tapping into your network, we’d like to hear from you too.

Finally, as you know The Spoon team has been working every day trying to uncover stories of people innovating on the front lines of the food world during COVID-19. If you have a story or news you think we should know about, please let us know.

Stay safe and healthy and we’ll see you (virtually) on April 6th!

Lyft Will Deliver Meals to Seniors and Kids to Help During COVID-19 Crisis

Ridesharing company Lyft announced a number of new initiatives over the weekend to help combat problems arising from the continued COVID-19 crisis. That includes meal delivery for those in need.

In a corporate blog post last Friday, Lyft outlined the new steps it was taking:

Supporting delivery of meals for kids and seniors in need: Students who receive free or subsidized lunch at school and home-bound seniors have been heavily affected by shelter-in-place advisories. To meet crucial food access gaps, Lyft is working in partnership with government agencies and local non-profits. Starting with a pilot in the Bay Area, drivers will be able to pick up meals from distribution centers and deliver them without contact to individuals in need. We are working to quickly scale this program throughout California and across the country. 

As schools have been forced to close amid the global pandemic, there is ongoing concern about how kids in low-income areas will get fed. In response, schools have been creating grab-and-go meals, but those still need to get to the kids, something that isn’t easy when parents have to work (and fear losing their jobs). Lyft stepping in like this could provide a great community service.

Lyft also said it was activating its LyftUp program, a partnership with public heath entities, non-profits, governments and community organizations to provide additional assistance to serve populations in need. Through LyftUp Grocery Access Program, Lyft will be providing rides “to and from grocery stores in food insecure areas.”

Lyft is among a number of companies stepping up to serve the most vulnerable populations at this time. In Atlanta, Goodr has been working with schools to deliver meals to 40,000 students in that school district.

In addition to food related activities, Lyft also launched programs to assist with the delivery of medical supplies, and non-emergency medical transportation for low income individuals.

While Lyft, the company, announced these initiatives, it’s important to remember that it ain’t the C-level execs or hardware engineers or marketing teams that will be driving around and delivering meals. It’s the everyday contractors who are literally on the front lines of this epidemic. If you are still using ridesharing services (we assume you’re only leaving your house to get groceries), and are able — tip generously.

The Food Tech Show: How One Seattle Chef is Surviving Through Innovation During the Pandemic

From his time as director of culinary research for Chicago’s Alinea to creating video game themed dinner nights at his own Seattle based restaurant “incubator” Addo, Chef Eric Rivera has long been known for his ability to innovate.

As it turns out, innovation becomes a required survival skill during a global pandemic like COVID-19, and ever since Seattle became one of the early breakout hotspots in the US, Rivera has been relying on the out of the box thinking to steer his business through a landscape shaped by coronavirus.

I caught up with Rivera this week to discuss the ways in which his business is adapting during the pandemic. We discuss the mandatory shut down of restaurants in Washington state, taking care of his employees during the crisis, launching his own delivery service and pop-ups for take out, offering remote cooking classes to people sheltering-in-place and more.

You can find Eric at his website and on Instagram at www.instagram.com/ericriveracooks.

As always, you can listen to the Food Tech Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download direct to your device or just click play below.

Ox Verte Pivoted from Office Catering to Home Office Meal Delivery in Three Days

What a difference a five days can make. A couple of weeks back, NYC-based office meal delivery service Ox Verte had a nice business going. The certified B corp counted a couple thousand offices as customers and had a substantial run rate. Then COVID-19 came on strong in New York and people were told to work from home. In a matter of days, Ox Verte’s revenue disappeared to $0.00.

But Ox Verte Founder and CEO Jessie Gould didn’t panic or quit, she mobilized and pivoted the company completely. Instead of delivering food to offices, they would deliver it to home offices.

This week, in just three days, Ox Verte launched a new website (oxverte.nyc) and a whole new line of business. The startup now offers delivery of a box set of fruits and veggies ($95) , snacks ($4), as well as Ox Verte-made bowls ($16.50 each). Since it is now delivering to homes, the company also offers a menu of meals for families ($65 or $145, depending on size). Because it is a B Corp., all of Ox Verte’s food is plant-forward (though not strictly vegetarian) and locally sourced.

I spoke with Gould by phone this week and asked if its supply chain had been disrupted and she was quick to say no. “There is just a mismatch right now because there’s a run on grocery stores,” Gould said, “But fields haven’t stopped growing food. Our supply chain is intact and they [food producers] would like us to take more.”

I also asked if there were new sanitation or cleaning procedures that are being mandated by NYC since the outbreak. “DOH [Department of Health] procedures in NY pretty strict to begin with,” Gould said, though they have instituted contactless delivery as well as new cleaning protocols for the containers carrying food.

The pivot hasn’t come without its own challenges, however. Ox Verte had to lay off three full-time employees, and stop work with a number of contractors. Gould hopes these layoffs are temporary and that those affected can be re-hired as the business grows.

To grow that business, Gould is targeting the employees of Ox Verte’s previous corporate customers to see if there is a way those companies can subsidize meals for its people working from home. Ox Verte isn’t abandoning the corporate market altogether. The company plans to just build up two lines of business after this pandemic subsides.

In the meantime, Ox Verte’s story can hopefully provide a ray of hope for other businesses impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. It might be mercenary, but it’s also true that crisis brings opportunity. For Ox Verte, it forced them into a new line of business. Now we’ll see if there’s an actual business there.

UPDATE: This story originally incorrectly reported Ox Verte laid off 9 people. It was only three. We regret the error.

Could the COVID-19 Outbreak Save Meal Kits?

When I get anxious or stressed out, my natural response is to cook elaborate meals for myself. Following complex recipes soothes me.

But I understand that that is absolutely not the case for many folks out there. Nonetheless, in a time where we’re not supposed to be leaving the house, there’s only so much delivery you can order in — and so many meals of spaghetti you can make.

That’s where meal kits could come in handy. They’re delivered to your door (no venturing out to grocery stores!), contain ingredients for a balanced meal, and give folks who might not be super comfortable in the kitchen some training wheels to get them cooking. On top of that, most meal kit services are at least slightly cheaper than ordering delivery, especially when you factor in tip.

I reached out to a few meal kit companies to see how the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent social distancing is affecting them. And the news was uniformly positive! Unlike many food-related companies, meal kits are actually seeing a boost in sales.

Purple Carrot’s founder and CEO Andy Levitt told me that the company had seen a “sharp increase in demand for our plant-based meal kits since COVID-19 has been shifting consumer behavior.” A representative from HomeChef emailed me that the company was seeing an “unprecedented increase in orders” with “more people cooking at home.” Over email, Blue Apron’s CEO Linda Findley Kozlowski also noted that the company had seen “a sharp increase in consumer demand.” No one would disclose exact numbers.

All of the companies I contacted emphasized that their employees were following CDC guidelines to ensure food safety during sourcing and packing. One benefit of meal kits is that the ingredients are packed in a warehouse, which means there are also fewer people touching your food and less chance of contamination than in a supermarket.

As we’ve written about time and again on The Spoon, the meal kit industry has been struggling for quite a while. Will this recent boost in subscribers be enough to sustain meal kits? Levitt is optimistic; he anticipated that the demand would continue even after the COVID-19 pandemic dies down.

I’m perhaps less so. The basic problems for meal kits — managing disparate supply chains, encouraging customer stickiness, making recipes easy enough for anyone to cook, and competing against food delivery — will still be present in our post-coronavirus future.

True, maybe some folks who are trying out meal kits now will get hooked and decide to continue on that path. But overall, if meal kit companies want to survive I think they’ll have to continue to innovate to cater to shifting consumer needs by focusing on retail, enabling more customization, and creating easier, faster recipes.

But for now, meal kits are filling an important need for consumers who want to cook more at home, but aren’t sure how. It’s a small but noteworthy silver lining in the time of COVID-19.

My Elderly Parents Kept Going to the Grocery Store, So I Finally Instacarted for Them (and It was Great!)

Parents, especially elderly ones, can be stubborn. They have their routines and will stick to ’em by gum. For my septuagenarian parents, it’s going to their local grocery store, which they love (my dad actually had his 65th birthday party there).

But as the COVID-19 shroud continues to unfurl across the nation and people are being asked to stay at home, going to the grocery store, especially if you’re elderly (sorry, mom!), seems like not such a great idea anymore.

We’ve already seen some grocery stores create special, early hours where only seniors can shop, which is a good idea. But honestly, I would prefer if my parents didn’t have to go out in the world at all, at least for the next few weeks.

I’ve been telling them about online grocery shopping since this pandemic began, and how it could be an option for them to get food without leaving their house. They politely nodded and said that yes that was an option, and then went to the store anyway. My mother in particular is pretty tech-savvy, so the concept of getting groceries online wasn’t scary to her; I think it was more about their routines.

As this pandemic transmogrified a full-on international crisis, I upped the pressure on my parents to give up the grocery store. But they kept going. I don’t live near them (otherwise I’d shop for them), so finally yesterday I Instacarted for them. And it was fantastic.

I live in a rural area where Instacart isn’t available, so I hadn’t used the service yet. But after downloading the app, I was able to plug in my parents’ address, find their local store, and start shopping.

My Instacart Shopper was super helpful at finding product replacements.

My mom sent a list of items and I placed the order. While I was expecting deliveries to be delayed at least a few days, surprisingly there was a same-day window. Aces!

What I appreciated was how my shopper, Julia, was communicative throughout the whole process. Understandably, a lot of what I ordered was out of stock, so she sent suggestions and photos of options (or lack thereof, almost all of the bread was gone). Finally, I left instructions for her to just drop off the groceries on my parents’ front porch (no touching!). Julia sent me a pic when the delivery was done and I FaceTimed my parents to let them know.

I’m deeply aware that we are asking more of gig workers and delivery people than ever before. In this case, Julia is literally helping keep my parents fed. Instacart has a pretty crappy track record when it comes to treating its workers well. Given that their shoppers are on the front lines of this pandemic, Instacart better damn well step up and do the right thing (all of the tip I left should have gone to Julia). It would also be cool if Instacart offered something similar to Chatt.us, wherein you could buy groceries for someone else in need (because with all the restaurant closures and job losses, there is going to be a lot of need).

I realize that many of you reading this are probably saying Duh, Chris, we know all about Instacart. Great! I’m sharing this story because in these strange times, we can re-think how we use our existing resources to help others. Anecdotally, I’ve heard from a bunch of friends who are struggling with their parents going out for groceries. If you are concerned for your elderly parents, and have the means and can use a tool like Instacart or Safeway online or Walmart for them, maybe consider it.

Will this experiment push my parents into online grocery shopping? I don’t know yet, they say they are stocked for a few weeks. But hopefully when I bring up Instacart again, they won’t just nod their head politely.

We’re spending every day tracking the impact of COVID-19 on the world of food. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our analysis and hear stories from the front lines.

Video: Creator Engineered an Awesome Way to Deliver Germ-Free Burgers

COVID-19 has spawned a lot of new safety protocols in food delivery to help stem the outbreak. Grocery stores are wiping everything down more often. Delivery companies are dropping food off without human contact. But leave it to Creator, which built an entire robot to make (delicious) cheeseburgers, to take who concept of clean food to a whole new level.

During this pandemic, Creator has shifted to a delivery only model, and the company posted a video to Instagram today showing off its high-tech, highly-engineered solution for making sure the food you eat is as germ-free as possible. Creator described the new system in an email sent to us, saying:

Our engineers have worked around the clock to create a transfer chamber that protects the inside of the restaurant from outside air yet still allows us to transport completed meals, in their hermetically sealed bags, out to customers. The chamber uses a positive pressure system combined with a self-sanitizing conveyor.

In addition to this Andromeda Strain-level of prevention, Creator’s robot can also potentially help curb the spread of disease because it removes another human from the equation (though there are still humans involved in assembling your order).

Creator’s solution may seem over-the-top, but honestly, over-the-top solutions are exactly what we need right now.

Online Grocer Farmstead Seeing 70 Percent Growth, Doubling Headcount to Keep Up

Farmstead has suddenly found itself on the front lines of the COVID-19 epidemic. The online grocer is based and delivers only in the Bay Area, where a shelter in place order was recently put into effect. As a result a lot of people are ordering food online and Farmstead, which has been around for a couple of years, now finds itself struggling to keep up with demand.

I spoke with Pradeep Elankumaran, Farmstead Co-Founder and CEO this morning, and he told me that back in normal non-coronavirus times, his company had at best 10 to 12 percent week over week growth. Three weeks ago, when the severity of the situation started settling in, that number jumped to 40 percent week over week growth. The following week was 50 percent wee/week growth over that. In the third week of the, should we call it a “panic?”, Farmstead’s week/week growth was 70 percent.

That is a lot of growth in a very short amount of time. Farmstead is currently doubling its headcount of pick-and-pack workers and delivery drivers to keep up, going from 70 workers to 140.

Farmstead’s hook has always been its AI-powered inventory management. The company builds microhub distribution centers in neighborhoods and uses its algorithms to make sure each one has just enough stock: not too much so that some goes to waste, and not so little that orders can’t be fulfilled.

Elankumaran said that even with the spike in demand, his software has been mostly effective at adapting and managing the situation. He attributes that success to a couple of key parameters that go into its algorithm. First, when you order from Farmstead, you don’t know if an item is out of stock until after you click on it (other online grocers will grey out an item when it’s gone so you can’t even click). While this is a wasted click for the consumer, it gives Farmstead more data on what consumers actually want, which allows the company to continue to feed its system.

Second, Elankumaran said that the sell by date for every item in the store is listed. That way they know how long each item they have will last and can prioritize distribution accordingly.

Farmstead’s system can’t totally prevent items being out of stock. During the first week of the outbreak, it sold out of pasta, for example. But because Farmstead knew everything people were trying to buy (even if they couldn’t) and how long that item lasts, they were able to adjust accordingly for the subsequent weeks.

Another side effect of the COVID-19 shopping, Elankumaran said, was that people are buying more fresh produce online through Farmstead. Buying fruits and vegetables online was something people typically didn’t do as they like to be in the store to look at and touch items before buying them. But when you are on lockdown, any safe port in a storm and all that. Plus, people may be waking up to the fact that between store workers and other shoppers, each piece of fruit could be touched by a lot of people while sitting at the store.

The fact that Farmstead doesn’t have an actual store that’s open to the public could also benefit the company. It’s a warehouse so the only people touching your food are the workers there, which is something Farmstead can exert greater control over.

As we’ve talked about before, COVID-19 is forcing new behaviors across the meal journey. While sudden demand is putting a strain on Farmstead and other grocery delivery services, these companies will adapt, and presumably work out the wrinkles in order to stay alive, and perhaps create a new normal in the way people shop for food.

New York City’s Restaurant Traffic is Down by Almost 70%. That’s Before the Lockdown

This weekend I wrote about how restaurant traffic had seen precipitous drops last week in places like Washington State and New York City due to coronavirus. That trend has only gotten worse.

As of Sunday, restaurant traffic drops in big US cities hit hard by COVID-19 were eye-popping. Using OpenTable data, I charted the year over year traffic from about a month ago (Feb 18th, the first available date using OpenTable’s data) and compared it to year over year traffic on Sunday.

New York City’s restaurant traffic was down by 69%, while Seattle’s restaurant traffic had dropped by 62%. Despite being two of the earliest hotspots, these were not the biggest drops. San Francisco restaurant traffic was down by 72% on Sunday compared to a year earlier, while Boston’s traffic was down 70%.

It should all be noted that this has all happened before the start of mandatory restaurant dine-in shutdowns, which are beginning this week in New York City, Seattle and San Francisco. Clearly, these numbers are going to get worse.

It’s also worth noting that in cities where there are shutdowns, delivery is still allowed and those restaurants that can make the pivot to all-delivery models are attempting to do so. Even Canlis, Seattle’s legendary $300 a plate restaurant, has closed its dining room and opened up a burger-pick-up drive through lane.

Still, businesses that were built to feed diners inside a space cannot pivot on a dime and we’re seeing significant disruption to even the biggest names in dining. Danny Meyer announced the temporary shut downs of his restaurants, following the likes of Tom Douglas in Seattle. José Andrés, being the great José Andrés, has shut down his restaurants and turned them into community kitchens to feedd COVID-impacted families.

We’ll continue to cover the impact of coronavirus as we move into forced closings. For those restaurants looking to ramp up their delivery business, we’ve started to gather a list of companies lending a helping hand here.