Dear Kind Feastlings,
The long and short of it is this: it’s really only a matter of a very short time before we all need to hole up and get through this COVID-19 thing. That said, comfort food is called that for a reason. So we know we’ll be closing up shop soon enough, but while we keep our social distance from you, we’ll still be preparing food until we get to the tipping point. Here’s what we’re doing until we reach that point:
The staff here, all of whom are healthy as I write this, will be working on a few projects.
-One is running the restaurant until we do get to the aforementioned point. Not that it’will be difficult to achieve given the number of cancellations we’ve had, but we’ll be cutting down our capacity by half to allow ample social distancing, and we’ll continue following CDC protocol regarding cleaning and sanitizing.
We’re having an ongoing deep cleaning to give the staff the hours we can until it becomes unsustainable or inadvisable from a public health
standpoint.
-One is the immediate future: we’ve got more corned beef and cabbage than you can shake a stick at, available both in the newly more sparsely populated restaurant, or for the less venturesome, to go. And for those who won’t be eating it for a spell, we’ll have it in cryovac bags so it’ll last longer and you can simply drop it into simmering water to heat it up. And since we have virtually no reservations besides those who plan on attending tomorrow’s wine dinner, the thirty of you who have reservations for it will be spread out among the 120 seats we have in the restaurant. Ditto for now with upcoming wine tastings, though so much has changed in the past 24 hours that we’ll keep you posted as changes occur.
-Another is preparing additional food that’s vacuum packed and can be dropped into boiling water to heat and eat at your convenience. We’ve got ingredients coming in today and we’ve hit the ground running, making a menu that’s carryout friendly- back to our roots,
for those of you who remember that we began as a carryout restaurant nearly 19 years ago- which we’ll post on the website as soon as it’s available. But look for yellow curry, crawfish etouffee, boeuf bourguignonne, pork picadillo and some other comfort food faves to pick up in the very near future, or for one of our kind staff to deliver to your door. There’ll be no need to call and order at mealtime to get your food, though until we serve whatever we have in our walk-ins that won’t reheat well, we’ll be offering our entire menu for curbside pickup or delivery.
-Another plan is to convert some of our inventory back into something more liquid. And that means doing something with our liquid inventory. We’ll keep you posted as to a wine sale, which we may end up needing to do by appointment to keep people from clustering together. More on that when we have it figured out.
-Yet another is putting our heads together- figuratively- to think of what else we can do to keep the staff
afloat in face of what’s clearly coming shortly. Forty-eight people rely on Feast to make their living, and a significant chunk of that 48 have children to feed. While we welcome and encourage your thoughts and ideas, please know that if we don’t respond it’s because we’re a bit overwhelmed around here. Monday was a non-stop inundation of texts, emails and calls between staff, guests, catering clients and purveyors, and we’re not even open on Mondays, and we expect today to be daunting in that respect as well. So thanks in advance for what thoughts you have, in the event we don’t reply to what you may send in the future.
-At some point, we’ll convert some of our liquid inventory into something more liquid, We’ll be having a wine sale but need to consider the logistics of it in order to keep everyone healthy and safe. We’ll keep you posted on that front.
Meanwhile, we of course appreciate whatever support you can give that still allows you to feel comfortable, whether it’s
ordering something to pick up or have delivered, grabbing a bottle of wine or just sending kind thoughts, and we urge you to do the same for whomever else is in your orbit whose livelihood is affected by the pandemic. If you think you’ll miss your local theater company when this is over, send a donation; if there’s a there’s a small shop you love that’s going to have to shutter for a month or more, get a gift certificate so they can reopen when the sun comes up after what’s likely to be a very long night.
Keep yourselves healthy and calm, and thank you for making us a part of your community. We’re really hoping we’ll still be here at the end of all this.
Love,
Your nervous but strong friends at Feast