Every day we wake up basically to the same news and the same new normal.

There is much to be read about the effect COVID-19 has had on the restaurant and hospitality business. Top chefs like Danny Meyer, Marcus Samuelsson, and Andrew Carmeliini ask, “ Will We Have an America Without Restaurants?” (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/opinion/coronavirus-restaurants-danny-meyer.html?fbclid=IwAR2gqNQQVXulgt1UdGoVw0rWLCrpQcszHhW_yUomRvTalPcYEpxvMgDrLwg)

Chef José Andrés OpEd( https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/opinion/restaurants-coronavirus-food-aid.html) in the New York Times talks about mobilizing restaurant workers to help feed people.

Many others have editorialized how devastating this will be for the industry and how the shockwaves of closing restaurants and hotels will trickle down to unemployment in many sectors of our economy including purveyors, farmers, packaging, warehouses, trucking and on and on.

Just in Florida, over 75,000 people applied for unemployment insurance within the last two weeks, with over 330, 000 projected to now be out of work just from the hospitality sector.

But just when the cloud looming overhead seems endless, grassroots initiatives are popping up all over. The Miami F&B Community has always been one of compassion and unity and even in these trying times a sense of working together prevails.

A GoFundMe page started by local top chefs providing for $250- per qualified employee has raised almost $70,000 ( https://www.gofundme.com/f/miamirestaurantemployeerelieffund). The SOBEWFF and FIU Chaplin School of Hospitality has set aside $1.0 million to help independent restaurants get back on their feet.( https://sobewff.org/industry-relief).

And World Central Kitchen, started by Nobel Peace Prize nominee Chef José Andrés, has set up their first Community Kitchen in Florida at Red Rooster Overtown in partnership with Chef Marcus Samuelsson, Grove Bay Hospitality Group and the Food Rescue US Miami affiliate.

Free lunch bags with a sandwich, salad, and beverage will be available on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday from 12-4 (or until food runs out) and anyone from the restaurant or hotel industry is welcome to stop by, bring a friend, keep a social distance, grab a meal and a virtual hug. To help support and grow #ChefsForAmerica in Miami donate https://foodrescue.us/food-rescue-us-announces-covid-19/

Also, keeping open and helping feed is Nick Sharp and his Threefold Café and Restaurants.

Nick has pivoted from his offering his regular menu to shifting into the grocery business and he is busier than ever. The purveyors providing restaurants with food, from small local farmers, dairies and ranches, to food giant Sysco, suddenly are stuck with mountains of inventory.

Sharp, who had worked for a company that bought and sold food in bulk before opening Threefold saw the opportunity to offer grocery bags of food and affordable family meal packs.

“You’re not a restaurant anymore. You’re providing food,” he was quoted as saying in a recent Miami Herald article. (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article241471576.html)

He will provide grocery items and affordable family meals every day with pre-orders online at www.Threefoldcafe.com.

In addition to Nick and Threefold, other creative owners include Camila Ramos at All Day Café Chef Brad Kilgore’s Alter which now includes AlterQ grocer and butcher, and many restaurants like Red South Beach who are selling their cuts of meat butcher style.

But all of these creative efforts to help feed, employ and support require money, and each project is looking for funds to grow or expand. As we “shelter in place” for who knows how long, maybe use this time to support, purchase or make a donation to any of the creative and worthy projects.

Being able to pivot to a new way of looking at food, and a new way of looking at the restaurant business is how we will come out of this smarter and stronger than before.