Trying to make some bread this morning while incredibly sick (bad cold). I have already succeeded in smearing honey on 8 different surfaces, due to Confusion. Feeling some solidarity with small children today, who ive heard also are incredibly good at that

Why New Restaurants Are Still, Somehow, Opening During the Pandemic

Inside Panino Taglio | Stephanie Forrer

Saddled with debt, mortgages, and payroll, some owners have no choice but to open a new restaurant in the midst of COVID-19

Across the country, the novel coronavirus has closed countless restaurants, temporarily or permanently. Yet, even as the future for food businesses looks dire and restaurants struggle to attain financial support from Congress, new restaurants are opening their doors against economic headwinds. Established names and first-time owners are untangling health and safety requirements and navigating the murky ethical waters of employing staff, all to offer bagels, Vietnamese coffee, Korean fine dining, cheese boards, and pizza to home diners and frontline workers.

“Some people think we’re crazy to have our opening day right now,” says Chen Dien of Coffeeholic House in Seattle. Along with his wife Trang Cao, Dien opened the cafe, which specializes in brewing with Vietnamese slow-drip phin filters, for takeout only on March 17, one day after Seattle closed restaurants for dine-in service. The couple closed the cafe soon after, for two weeks, as the situation grew worse. But after Gov. Jay Inslee extended the stay-at-home order until May 4, they decided to reopen for good, without seating and with guide markers on the floor to ensure social distancing.

“It’s been our dream for many years to open our own coffee shop,” Dien explains. They simply couldn’t let the business die, and remaining closed wasn’t an option. “It’s very hard for a small business like ours to shut down for a few months and not do anything. We still have bills to pay.” Many others are in a similar spot, opening in the middle of stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures because they had little choice.

Amalia Litsa and Joshua Adrian, co-owners of the new Dear Diary Coffeehouse in Austin, decided to open their cafe for takeout on April 4, weeks after the city ordered restaurants closed on March 17. “It’s not like a business just pops up out of nowhere,” Litsa says. “Business loans, personal capital, building out a space for nine months — the business existed well before the brick-and-mortar part of it did.” The partners opened, even while other restaurants around town were closing, partly because they lacked the funds to fully ride out the storm. “No matter what, we’re going to operate at a loss, but even a weak revenue stream would slow that loss,” Litsa says. “It’s our best chance of surviving at all.”

Courtesy Coffeeholic House

Customers wait at Coffeeholic House

Courtesy Coffeeholic House

Pick-up orders at Coffeeholic House

Even restaurant groups, which could concentrate resources and staff at existing businesses, have decided it sometimes makes more economic sense to add another venue to their rosters. Brendan McGill, chef and owner of Hitchcock in Bainbridge Island, Washington, and sister restaurants in Seattle, had been leasing a space in the Georgetown neighborhood for seven years before soft opening Panino Taglio on March 21. The cafe, an extension of his downtown restaurant Bar Taglio, offers take-and-bake pizzas alongside Italian pantry items.

“I had been paying for an empty space, so I figured doing some business in there, especially if it made sense in relation to the other businesses, why not activate it?” McGill says. The team limited expenses as much as possible for the low-lift venture. McGill borrowed equipment from a friend’s warehouse during build-out and employed a delivery person in-house to avoid paying fees to delivery platforms. McGill adds, “The landscape could change constantly as we attempt it, but that’s not much different from the restaurant business anyway.”

Without foot traffic, new business owners must rely (even more than usual) on social and digital media to spread the word about opening. “There’s a lot of noise on social right now, but everyone is just at home glued to their phones,” McGill says. “I think there’s good reach right now.” He points out it’s tricky to thread the needle on messaging, encouraging people to pick up food in person while government and health authorities are telling people to stay home. But Panino Taglio offers CSA boxes, wine, prepared items, and pantry goods all in one place, letting shoppers stock up on all their needs in one fell swoop. “We’re just trying to encourage people to do it from a local foods company rather than one of the big chains,” McGill says.

“We felt like we needed to try something if we were to sustain everyone.”

Andrew Dana, co-owner of Call Your Mother in D.C., actually wanted to keep things quiet while opening a second location of the bagel shop in Capitol Hill on April 15. “This isn’t the opening where you want tons and tons of people there. You want it to feel safe,” he says. But word spread quickly through the neighborhood listservs and from there to local media. “Every food blog in the city has picked up on it because it’s not like there are a lot of other restaurants opening.” To temper the hype and keep the operation safe, he has been cutting off orders after 1,600 bagels, often the day before people can even pick up.

Beautiful Rind, a specialty cheese cafe in Chicago, passed all of its inspections on March 19, the day before Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order. Cheesemonger Randall Felts officially opened his business on April 10, even as work crews continued touch-ups on the space. Felts originally planned to service the local community during the first year of business, then launch digital offerings in year two to expand customer reach. Now he says his local customers are digital too, so he’s accelerating his web plans.

Beautiful Rind debuted by offering digital classes: Felts delivers all the cheese boards himself (“it’s actually how I started in the restaurant industry, delivering sandwiches,” he says, noting how he’s come full circle), then returns to the shop to lead customers through a tasting. “The big challenge for me right now as a business owner is quickly learning how to be a website manager or a webinar host,” Felts says, though he admits it’s not too different from other ways he’s had to pivot as a business owner — he’s a pretty good plumber, too.

That scrappy spirit has allowed small businesses like Dear Diary and Coffeeholic to open with little or no staff, delaying hiring until they can consistently afford full staffs. At Dear Diary, Litsa and Adrian are only opening the shop five days a week. The buffer allows either partner to step in if their one barista becomes ill. But for larger operations, payroll often necessitates opening.

On April 10, Corey Lee of three-Michelin-starred Benu in San Francisco launched a preview of the hotly awaited San Ho Won, a Korean concept that was announced last fall. The restaurant was supposed to open this summer, but its recent takeout-only debut, in the form of a set menu, is being orchestrated from the Benu kitchen. Lee tells Eater via email that the business is providing healthcare and a meal program to all furloughed employees across his restaurant empire, as well as financial aid to international workers on visas who don’t qualify for unemployment benefits. “We felt like we needed to try something if we were to sustain everyone’s situation for an unknown period of time,” he says. Opening San Ho Won now as a takeout concept gives staff a chance to perfect recipes for the forthcoming restaurant, and allows Lee to funnel money directly to his workers.

Dana similarly had staff in mind when he moved ahead with opening a second Call Your Mother. While the original location is only doing 10 percent less retail business at the moment, he says, the business makes almost half its revenue from farmers markets and catering, which have dried up completely. The shop hasn’t cut employee salaries at all, though, so they needed the second location to make up the difference in revenue.

Before opening the second location, Dana sent out a survey to the team asking employees how they got to work, whether they lived with high-risk individuals, and whether they wanted to work at all. The responses informed managers’ decision to open and allowed them to identify employees who could safely walk to the new location rather than taking public transit to the original shop. They’re also paying some employees to work from home, helping maintain the new online ordering system and providing customer support over the phone.

New business owners may be excited about big plans for the future, but for now they too must adjust expectations. “There’s a lot of good stuff we want to launch, but we’re waiting for the best timing,” Dien says, though he remains optimistic. “We’ve been waiting for more than a year already, so it’s okay to wait for a little bit more.” In the summer, he hopes Coffeeholic can offer more drinks, like watermelon juice, coconut coffee, and lychee or passion fruit tea.

Both the original Call Your Mother shop and the new one are limiting offerings to streamline operations for reduced kitchen staff: The new location only offers whole bagels with cream cheese. Felts also cut down offerings, and he had to pivot to feature domestic cheese and charcuterie as the pandemic affected international trade with European suppliers. “We’ve been able to transition more to those guys and spread the love as best we can,” he says. Felts has also worked to incorporate small, local partners, offering online pairing classes featuring beer and cider makers.

Randall Felts

Randall Felts leading a digital cheese tasting

The Dear Diary menu reflects shifting supply in Austin, too. “There didn’t used to be this much demand for growlers,” Litsa explains, “but now every coffee shop in town is offering cold brew growlers, so they’re really hard to get from any distributor.” She and Adrian looked for alternative packaging on Amazon and came upon plastic honey bears, popular among home beekeepers. They now package cold brew in 22-ounce bears and to-go syrups in 8-ounce versions.

As fellow coffee shops have closed, though, Litsa has also noticed the opposite problem: local bakeries and caterers with nowhere to sell their goods. Rather than spread small orders between a lot of suppliers, Litsa has decided to concentrate on developing quality relationships through substantial orders from a select few partners.

Litsa argues that new restaurants are particularly flexible to the changing situation. “In a way we’re blessed by having less business because it gives us more time to wrap our heads around what to do next and we can experiment without pissing off as many people,” she says. “By the time we have more business, either because corona has lifted or our economy has morphed, we’ll be really frickin’ good at what we do.”

Litsa brought her sewing machine to the cafe to produce masks during slow hours; she sells the masks alongside coffee. There are plans for goodie boxes of art supplies and postcards. “Corona is indefinite. It could be a year. It could be two years. It could be the economy is forever changed. We just need to accept that now and adapt,” Litsa says. “We’re bleeding over the edges of a strict coffee shop definition.”

Even as they work constantly to adapt to the rapidly changing situation, many argue their businesses are positioned to provide hope and positive energy, both in demand as much as food. “It’s a nice reminder that there’s something to look forward to,” Lee says of the pop-up, “instead of offering altered versions of existing concepts and being reminded just how much our lives have been ruptured by this pandemic.”

That positivity flows in all directions. Many owners are passing along that goodwill through charity work, sending food and drinks to hospital workers or those in need. Customers also provide owners with the necessary confidence to open and stay open.

“I know I seem a little crazy to be opening a restaurant right now,” Felts says. “But when people come in and thank me for doing that and they’re excited to see the food, to get some cheese and just have a little happiness, it makes it totally worth it.”

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2zLof0z https://ift.tt/2y63kF4

Inside Panino Taglio | Stephanie Forrer

Saddled with debt, mortgages, and payroll, some owners have no choice but to open a new restaurant in the midst of COVID-19

Across the country, the novel coronavirus has closed countless restaurants, temporarily or permanently. Yet, even as the future for food businesses looks dire and restaurants struggle to attain financial support from Congress, new restaurants are opening their doors against economic headwinds. Established names and first-time owners are untangling health and safety requirements and navigating the murky ethical waters of employing staff, all to offer bagels, Vietnamese coffee, Korean fine dining, cheese boards, and pizza to home diners and frontline workers.

“Some people think we’re crazy to have our opening day right now,” says Chen Dien of Coffeeholic House in Seattle. Along with his wife Trang Cao, Dien opened the cafe, which specializes in brewing with Vietnamese slow-drip phin filters, for takeout only on March 17, one day after Seattle closed restaurants for dine-in service. The couple closed the cafe soon after, for two weeks, as the situation grew worse. But after Gov. Jay Inslee extended the stay-at-home order until May 4, they decided to reopen for good, without seating and with guide markers on the floor to ensure social distancing.

“It’s been our dream for many years to open our own coffee shop,” Dien explains. They simply couldn’t let the business die, and remaining closed wasn’t an option. “It’s very hard for a small business like ours to shut down for a few months and not do anything. We still have bills to pay.” Many others are in a similar spot, opening in the middle of stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures because they had little choice.

Amalia Litsa and Joshua Adrian, co-owners of the new Dear Diary Coffeehouse in Austin, decided to open their cafe for takeout on April 4, weeks after the city ordered restaurants closed on March 17. “It’s not like a business just pops up out of nowhere,” Litsa says. “Business loans, personal capital, building out a space for nine months — the business existed well before the brick-and-mortar part of it did.” The partners opened, even while other restaurants around town were closing, partly because they lacked the funds to fully ride out the storm. “No matter what, we’re going to operate at a loss, but even a weak revenue stream would slow that loss,” Litsa says. “It’s our best chance of surviving at all.”

Courtesy Coffeeholic House

Customers wait at Coffeeholic House

Courtesy Coffeeholic House

Pick-up orders at Coffeeholic House

Even restaurant groups, which could concentrate resources and staff at existing businesses, have decided it sometimes makes more economic sense to add another venue to their rosters. Brendan McGill, chef and owner of Hitchcock in Bainbridge Island, Washington, and sister restaurants in Seattle, had been leasing a space in the Georgetown neighborhood for seven years before soft opening Panino Taglio on March 21. The cafe, an extension of his downtown restaurant Bar Taglio, offers take-and-bake pizzas alongside Italian pantry items.

“I had been paying for an empty space, so I figured doing some business in there, especially if it made sense in relation to the other businesses, why not activate it?” McGill says. The team limited expenses as much as possible for the low-lift venture. McGill borrowed equipment from a friend’s warehouse during build-out and employed a delivery person in-house to avoid paying fees to delivery platforms. McGill adds, “The landscape could change constantly as we attempt it, but that’s not much different from the restaurant business anyway.”

Without foot traffic, new business owners must rely (even more than usual) on social and digital media to spread the word about opening. “There’s a lot of noise on social right now, but everyone is just at home glued to their phones,” McGill says. “I think there’s good reach right now.” He points out it’s tricky to thread the needle on messaging, encouraging people to pick up food in person while government and health authorities are telling people to stay home. But Panino Taglio offers CSA boxes, wine, prepared items, and pantry goods all in one place, letting shoppers stock up on all their needs in one fell swoop. “We’re just trying to encourage people to do it from a local foods company rather than one of the big chains,” McGill says.

“We felt like we needed to try something if we were to sustain everyone.”

Andrew Dana, co-owner of Call Your Mother in D.C., actually wanted to keep things quiet while opening a second location of the bagel shop in Capitol Hill on April 15. “This isn’t the opening where you want tons and tons of people there. You want it to feel safe,” he says. But word spread quickly through the neighborhood listservs and from there to local media. “Every food blog in the city has picked up on it because it’s not like there are a lot of other restaurants opening.” To temper the hype and keep the operation safe, he has been cutting off orders after 1,600 bagels, often the day before people can even pick up.

Beautiful Rind, a specialty cheese cafe in Chicago, passed all of its inspections on March 19, the day before Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order. Cheesemonger Randall Felts officially opened his business on April 10, even as work crews continued touch-ups on the space. Felts originally planned to service the local community during the first year of business, then launch digital offerings in year two to expand customer reach. Now he says his local customers are digital too, so he’s accelerating his web plans.

Beautiful Rind debuted by offering digital classes: Felts delivers all the cheese boards himself (“it’s actually how I started in the restaurant industry, delivering sandwiches,” he says, noting how he’s come full circle), then returns to the shop to lead customers through a tasting. “The big challenge for me right now as a business owner is quickly learning how to be a website manager or a webinar host,” Felts says, though he admits it’s not too different from other ways he’s had to pivot as a business owner — he’s a pretty good plumber, too.

That scrappy spirit has allowed small businesses like Dear Diary and Coffeeholic to open with little or no staff, delaying hiring until they can consistently afford full staffs. At Dear Diary, Litsa and Adrian are only opening the shop five days a week. The buffer allows either partner to step in if their one barista becomes ill. But for larger operations, payroll often necessitates opening.

On April 10, Corey Lee of three-Michelin-starred Benu in San Francisco launched a preview of the hotly awaited San Ho Won, a Korean concept that was announced last fall. The restaurant was supposed to open this summer, but its recent takeout-only debut, in the form of a set menu, is being orchestrated from the Benu kitchen. Lee tells Eater via email that the business is providing healthcare and a meal program to all furloughed employees across his restaurant empire, as well as financial aid to international workers on visas who don’t qualify for unemployment benefits. “We felt like we needed to try something if we were to sustain everyone’s situation for an unknown period of time,” he says. Opening San Ho Won now as a takeout concept gives staff a chance to perfect recipes for the forthcoming restaurant, and allows Lee to funnel money directly to his workers.

Dana similarly had staff in mind when he moved ahead with opening a second Call Your Mother. While the original location is only doing 10 percent less retail business at the moment, he says, the business makes almost half its revenue from farmers markets and catering, which have dried up completely. The shop hasn’t cut employee salaries at all, though, so they needed the second location to make up the difference in revenue.

Before opening the second location, Dana sent out a survey to the team asking employees how they got to work, whether they lived with high-risk individuals, and whether they wanted to work at all. The responses informed managers’ decision to open and allowed them to identify employees who could safely walk to the new location rather than taking public transit to the original shop. They’re also paying some employees to work from home, helping maintain the new online ordering system and providing customer support over the phone.

New business owners may be excited about big plans for the future, but for now they too must adjust expectations. “There’s a lot of good stuff we want to launch, but we’re waiting for the best timing,” Dien says, though he remains optimistic. “We’ve been waiting for more than a year already, so it’s okay to wait for a little bit more.” In the summer, he hopes Coffeeholic can offer more drinks, like watermelon juice, coconut coffee, and lychee or passion fruit tea.

Both the original Call Your Mother shop and the new one are limiting offerings to streamline operations for reduced kitchen staff: The new location only offers whole bagels with cream cheese. Felts also cut down offerings, and he had to pivot to feature domestic cheese and charcuterie as the pandemic affected international trade with European suppliers. “We’ve been able to transition more to those guys and spread the love as best we can,” he says. Felts has also worked to incorporate small, local partners, offering online pairing classes featuring beer and cider makers.

Randall Felts

Randall Felts leading a digital cheese tasting

The Dear Diary menu reflects shifting supply in Austin, too. “There didn’t used to be this much demand for growlers,” Litsa explains, “but now every coffee shop in town is offering cold brew growlers, so they’re really hard to get from any distributor.” She and Adrian looked for alternative packaging on Amazon and came upon plastic honey bears, popular among home beekeepers. They now package cold brew in 22-ounce bears and to-go syrups in 8-ounce versions.

As fellow coffee shops have closed, though, Litsa has also noticed the opposite problem: local bakeries and caterers with nowhere to sell their goods. Rather than spread small orders between a lot of suppliers, Litsa has decided to concentrate on developing quality relationships through substantial orders from a select few partners.

Litsa argues that new restaurants are particularly flexible to the changing situation. “In a way we’re blessed by having less business because it gives us more time to wrap our heads around what to do next and we can experiment without pissing off as many people,” she says. “By the time we have more business, either because corona has lifted or our economy has morphed, we’ll be really frickin’ good at what we do.”

Litsa brought her sewing machine to the cafe to produce masks during slow hours; she sells the masks alongside coffee. There are plans for goodie boxes of art supplies and postcards. “Corona is indefinite. It could be a year. It could be two years. It could be the economy is forever changed. We just need to accept that now and adapt,” Litsa says. “We’re bleeding over the edges of a strict coffee shop definition.”

Even as they work constantly to adapt to the rapidly changing situation, many argue their businesses are positioned to provide hope and positive energy, both in demand as much as food. “It’s a nice reminder that there’s something to look forward to,” Lee says of the pop-up, “instead of offering altered versions of existing concepts and being reminded just how much our lives have been ruptured by this pandemic.”

That positivity flows in all directions. Many owners are passing along that goodwill through charity work, sending food and drinks to hospital workers or those in need. Customers also provide owners with the necessary confidence to open and stay open.

“I know I seem a little crazy to be opening a restaurant right now,” Felts says. “But when people come in and thank me for doing that and they’re excited to see the food, to get some cheese and just have a little happiness, it makes it totally worth it.”

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2zLof0z via Blogger https://ift.tt/3bS8zqj

What's it like cooking your own Impossible Burger?

Since its debut three years ago, the only way to consume the Impossible Burger has been to find a restaurant that serves it. Over the years, Impossible has expanded its footprint from high-end joints in New York and San Francisco to nationwide fast-food establishments like White Castle and Burger King. Beginning today, however, it's available in grocery stores too, starting with Gelson's Markets in Southern California. I decided to try it out for myself, and compare it to a rival vegan meat product as well.

When I first saw the 12-ounce Impossible Burger package of raw faux beef, I was amazed at just how red and meat-like it looked. Beyond Meat, a brand that's been selling vegan meat alternatives in grocery stores for a number of years now, sells a similar 16-ounce package of Beyond Beef, but it isn't red or bloody at all. In fact, it's a brownish gray, which doesn't look as appetizing. Impossible's raw "meat" has no discernable scent, similar to fresh meat, while raw Beyond Beef, on the other hand, has a rather off-odor, almost that of slightly rotten produce. I was a little put off by that.

Texture-wise, the Impossible Burger's consistency is not quite as soft and smooth as the real deal. I felt tiny cubes of what I presume is some sort of coconut oil concoction spread throughout the "meat." But I was able to form loosely-packed quarter-pound patties exactly the same as I would with freshly ground beef. The Beyond Beef, however, was a little more paste-like and not quite as airy, and the resulting patty was a little denser.

Next came the actual cooking. First I sprinkled salt and pepper on both sides of the patties, then I put a cast iron pan with a bit of oil in it over a medium-high flame, and let it heat up for a few minutes. I then placed the patties in the pan one at a time, cooking them for about five minutes each, flipping halfway through. Patties from both Impossible Burger and Beyond Beef sizzled fiercely and got that deep brown crust that's synonymous with a well-cooked burger.

Yet, the end results were pretty different. While the cooked Impossible Burger patty looked practically identical to a real beef patty -- there's even a slight pink in the middle -- the Beyond Beef burger took on a deep red hue that seemed a little unnatural.

And then there's the taste. There's really no contest here. The Beyond Beef patty doesn't really taste that much like meat; it's more like a slightly upgraded version of a Boca burger. Together with a bun, toppings and sauce, it's not too bad, but it doesn't compare at all to the Impossible.

As I was eating the Impossible Burger, I actually exclaimed out loud in my kitchen several times on just how bleeping delicious it was (except replace "bleeping" with an actual curse word). It was crispy with a lovely soft chew that I found very satisfying. Add the usual burger fixings with it, and it is absolutely scrumptious. No, it isn't quite as juicy as a real burger, and it doesn't taste exactly like meat, but the Impossible Burger comes really close to the real deal.

Not to toot my own horn (Well, okay, maybe a little), but I also think my homemade Impossible Burger actually compares very well to the restaurant ones I've had. I think it's about on par with the one from Umami Burger, and it's definitely better than the Impossible Whopper and the White Castle sliders (those lacked the crispy crust I like). Of course, the beauty of home cooking is that I'm able to adjust the seasoning, size and doneness of the burgers to my personal preference.

The Impossible Burger isn't for everyone though. It uses soy protein, which might be a concern if you're allergic to that. Although Impossible has faced some backlash for using GMO ingredients that contain the pesticide glyphosate, the FDA has approved all of its ingredients as safe, and the US Environmental Protection Agency has said low levels of glyphosate aren't likely to be carcinogenic. Impossible Foods claims that the amount of glyphosate found in each burger is far below the risk threshold.

It's also on the pricier side compared to beef. That aforementioned 12-ounce package is $8.99, which adds up to about $0.75 per ounce. That's just a little bit more than the $9.99 16-ounce Beyond Beef at around $0.625 per ounce. Of course, beef can often be found for less than half that price depending on the quality and where you live. Making your own veggie burger with beans or lentils might end up being cheaper as well.

But a homemade Impossible Burger is still cheaper than having one made in a restaurant. The $8.99 package works out to $3 per quarter-pound burger, which is a deal compared to the $6 Impossible Whopper, and an absolute steal compared to the double-digit prices found at some restaurants (Umami charges $16 for its version, which admittedly uses two patties rather than one).

For someone looking to cut down their meat consumption for environmental reasons, I think the Impossible Burger is a wonderful option, and I like that it's finally available in grocery stores so I can cook it the way I want. I can't wait to see how it fares in dumplings and quick pasta sauces. Yes, it's more expensive than meat, so I probably won't have it all the time. But for the occasional meat-free meal at home, it's a compelling alternative.

- Repost from: engadget Post

Why New Restaurants Are Still, Somehow, Opening During the Pandemic added to Google Docs

Why New Restaurants Are Still, Somehow, Opening During the Pandemic

 Inside Panino Taglio | Stephanie Forrer

Saddled with debt, mortgages, and payroll, some owners have no choice but to open a new restaurant in the midst of COVID-19

Across the country, the novel coronavirus has closed countless restaurants, temporarily or permanently. Yet, even as the future for food businesses looks dire and restaurants struggle to attain financial support from Congress, new restaurants are opening their doors against economic headwinds. Established names and first-time owners are untangling health and safety requirements and navigating the murky ethical waters of employing staff, all to offer bagels, Vietnamese coffee, Korean fine dining, cheese boards, and pizza to home diners and frontline workers.

“Some people think we’re crazy to have our opening day right now,” says Chen Dien of Coffeeholic House in Seattle. Along with his wife Trang Cao, Dien opened the cafe, which specializes in brewing with Vietnamese slow-drip phin filters, for takeout only on March 17, one day after Seattle closed restaurants for dine-in service. The couple closed the cafe soon after, for two weeks, as the situation grew worse. But after Gov. Jay Inslee extended the stay-at-home order until May 4, they decided to reopen for good, without seating and with guide markers on the floor to ensure social distancing.

“It’s been our dream for many years to open our own coffee shop,” Dien explains. They simply couldn’t let the business die, and remaining closed wasn’t an option. “It’s very hard for a small business like ours to shut down for a few months and not do anything. We still have bills to pay.” Many others are in a similar spot, opening in the middle of stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures because they had little choice.

Amalia Litsa and Joshua Adrian, co-owners of the new Dear Diary Coffeehouse in Austin, decided to open their cafe for takeout on April 4, weeks after the city ordered restaurants closed on March 17. “It’s not like a business just pops up out of nowhere,” Litsa says. “Business loans, personal capital, building out a space for nine months — the business existed well before the brick-and-mortar part of it did.” The partners opened, even while other restaurants around town were closing, partly because they lacked the funds to fully ride out the storm. “No matter what, we’re going to operate at a loss, but even a weak revenue stream would slow that loss,” Litsa says. “It’s our best chance of surviving at all.”

 Courtesy Coffeeholic House Customers wait at Coffeeholic House  Courtesy Coffeeholic House Pick-up orders at Coffeeholic House

Even restaurant groups, which could concentrate resources and staff at existing businesses, have decided it sometimes makes more economic sense to add another venue to their rosters. Brendan McGill, chef and owner of Hitchcock in Bainbridge Island, Washington, and sister restaurants in Seattle, had been leasing a space in the Georgetown neighborhood for seven years before soft opening Panino Taglio on March 21. The cafe, an extension of his downtown restaurant Bar Taglio, offers take-and-bake pizzas alongside Italian pantry items.

“I had been paying for an empty space, so I figured doing some business in there, especially if it made sense in relation to the other businesses, why not activate it?” McGill says. The team limited expenses as much as possible for the low-lift venture. McGill borrowed equipment from a friend’s warehouse during build-out and employed a delivery person in-house to avoid paying fees to delivery platforms. McGill adds, “The landscape could change constantly as we attempt it, but that’s not much different from the restaurant business anyway.”

Without foot traffic, new business owners must rely (even more than usual) on social and digital media to spread the word about opening. “There’s a lot of noise on social right now, but everyone is just at home glued to their phones,” McGill says. “I think there’s good reach right now.” He points out it’s tricky to thread the needle on messaging, encouraging people to pick up food in person while government and health authorities are telling people to stay home. But Panino Taglio offers CSA boxes, wine, prepared items, and pantry goods all in one place, letting shoppers stock up on all their needs in one fell swoop. “We’re just trying to encourage people to do it from a local foods company rather than one of the big chains,” McGill says.

“We felt like we needed to try something if we were to sustain everyone.”

Andrew Dana, co-owner of Call Your Mother in D.C., actually wanted to keep things quiet while opening a second location of the bagel shop in Capitol Hill on April 15. “This isn’t the opening where you want tons and tons of people there. You want it to feel safe,” he says. But word spread quickly through the neighborhood listservs and from there to local media. “Every food blog in the city has picked up on it because it’s not like there are a lot of other restaurants opening.” To temper the hype and keep the operation safe, he has been cutting off orders after 1,600 bagels, often the day before people can even pick up.

Beautiful Rind, a specialty cheese cafe in Chicago, passed all of its inspections on March 19, the day before Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order. Cheesemonger Randall Felts officially opened his business on April 10, even as work crews continued touch-ups on the space. Felts originally planned to service the local community during the first year of business, then launch digital offerings in year two to expand customer reach. Now he says his local customers are digital too, so he’s accelerating his web plans.

Beautiful Rind debuted by offering digital classes: Felts delivers all the cheese boards himself (“it’s actually how I started in the restaurant industry, delivering sandwiches,” he says, noting how he’s come full circle), then returns to the shop to lead customers through a tasting. “The big challenge for me right now as a business owner is quickly learning how to be a website manager or a webinar host,” Felts says, though he admits it’s not too different from other ways he’s had to pivot as a business owner — he’s a pretty good plumber, too.

That scrappy spirit has allowed small businesses like Dear Diary and Coffeeholic to open with little or no staff, delaying hiring until they can consistently afford full staffs. At Dear Diary, Litsa and Adrian are only opening the shop five days a week. The buffer allows either partner to step in if their one barista becomes ill. But for larger operations, payroll often necessitates opening.

On April 10, Corey Lee of three-Michelin-starred Benu in San Francisco launched a preview of the hotly awaited San Ho Won, a Korean concept that was announced last fall. The restaurant was supposed to open this summer, but its recent takeout-only debut, in the form of a set menu, is being orchestrated from the Benu kitchen. Lee tells Eater via email that the business is providing healthcare and a meal program to all furloughed employees across his restaurant empire, as well as financial aid to international workers on visas who don’t qualify for unemployment benefits. “We felt like we needed to try something if we were to sustain everyone’s situation for an unknown period of time,” he says. Opening San Ho Won now as a takeout concept gives staff a chance to perfect recipes for the forthcoming restaurant, and allows Lee to funnel money directly to his workers.

Dana similarly had staff in mind when he moved ahead with opening a second Call Your Mother. While the original location is only doing 10 percent less retail business at the moment, he says, the business makes almost half its revenue from farmers markets and catering, which have dried up completely. The shop hasn’t cut employee salaries at all, though, so they needed the second location to make up the difference in revenue.

Before opening the second location, Dana sent out a survey to the team asking employees how they got to work, whether they lived with high-risk individuals, and whether they wanted to work at all. The responses informed managers’ decision to open and allowed them to identify employees who could safely walk to the new location rather than taking public transit to the original shop. They’re also paying some employees to work from home, helping maintain the new online ordering system and providing customer support over the phone.

New business owners may be excited about big plans for the future, but for now they too must adjust expectations. “There’s a lot of good stuff we want to launch, but we’re waiting for the best timing,” Dien says, though he remains optimistic. “We’ve been waiting for more than a year already, so it’s okay to wait for a little bit more.” In the summer, he hopes Coffeeholic can offer more drinks, like watermelon juice, coconut coffee, and lychee or passion fruit tea.

Both the original Call Your Mother shop and the new one are limiting offerings to streamline operations for reduced kitchen staff: The new location only offers whole bagels with cream cheese. Felts also cut down offerings, and he had to pivot to feature domestic cheese and charcuterie as the pandemic affected international trade with European suppliers. “We’ve been able to transition more to those guys and spread the love as best we can,” he says. Felts has also worked to incorporate small, local partners, offering online pairing classes featuring beer and cider makers.

 Randall Felts Randall Felts leading a digital cheese tasting

The Dear Diary menu reflects shifting supply in Austin, too. “There didn’t used to be this much demand for growlers,” Litsa explains, “but now every coffee shop in town is offering cold brew growlers, so they’re really hard to get from any distributor.” She and Adrian looked for alternative packaging on Amazon and came upon plastic honey bears, popular among home beekeepers. They now package cold brew in 22-ounce bears and to-go syrups in 8-ounce versions.

As fellow coffee shops have closed, though, Litsa has also noticed the opposite problem: local bakeries and caterers with nowhere to sell their goods. Rather than spread small orders between a lot of suppliers, Litsa has decided to concentrate on developing quality relationships through substantial orders from a select few partners.

Litsa argues that new restaurants are particularly flexible to the changing situation. “In a way we’re blessed by having less business because it gives us more time to wrap our heads around what to do next and we can experiment without pissing off as many people,” she says. “By the time we have more business, either because corona has lifted or our economy has morphed, we’ll be really frickin’ good at what we do.”

Litsa brought her sewing machine to the cafe to produce masks during slow hours; she sells the masks alongside coffee. There are plans for goodie boxes of art supplies and postcards. “Corona is indefinite. It could be a year. It could be two years. It could be the economy is forever changed. We just need to accept that now and adapt,” Litsa says. “We’re bleeding over the edges of a strict coffee shop definition.”

Even as they work constantly to adapt to the rapidly changing situation, many argue their businesses are positioned to provide hope and positive energy, both in demand as much as food. “It’s a nice reminder that there’s something to look forward to,” Lee says of the pop-up, “instead of offering altered versions of existing concepts and being reminded just how much our lives have been ruptured by this pandemic.”

That positivity flows in all directions. Many owners are passing along that goodwill through charity work, sending food and drinks to hospital workers or those in need. Customers also provide owners with the necessary confidence to open and stay open.

“I know I seem a little crazy to be opening a restaurant right now,” Felts says. “But when people come in and thank me for doing that and they’re excited to see the food, to get some cheese and just have a little happiness, it makes it totally worth it.”

via Eater - All https://www.eater.com/2020/4/30/21240323/new-restaurants-opening-during-coronavirus-covid-19

Created April 30, 2020 at 09:16PM /huong sen View Google Doc Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xa6sRugRZk4MDSyctcqusGYBv1lXYkrF

Like Mexican-Style Lagers? Here are 11 Craft Beers You Should Try

May 5, 2017

Chances are, you’ve occasionally thrown back a few bottles of a popular Mexican amber lager. Maybe you drank them before you got into craft beer and now they make you nostalgic, or maybe you harbor dreams of being the Most Interesting Man  — or Woman — in the World. Whatever the reason, the popularity of Mexican-style lagers persists even among seasoned craft beer drinkers.

But what is a Mexican-style lager in the first place? The category does not explicitly appear in the Beer Judge Certification Program or Great American Beer Festival style guidelines. Tracking down the roots of this summer quencher requires a brief history lesson.

(MORE: 8 Coconut Beers You’ll Crave Right Now)

Roots of the Mexican-style Lager

Modern Mexican lagers find their origin in the late 19th century when German and Austrian immigrants began brewing the beers of their homeland in Mexico. When Austria’s Maximilian I declared himself emperor of Mexico in 1864, he brought his nation’s newly beloved Vienna lager with him. The beer proved more popular in Mexico than Maximilian, who was executed just a few years later. The Vienna lager became the dominant beer in Mexico entering the 20th century.

The Viennese lager is widely regarded as an original lager style. The beer shared its name with the Austrian city where brewer Anton Dreher first brewed it with an isolated lager yeast, revolutionary for its time. The combination of the new lager yeast and the invention of high-temperature-controlled malting yielded a reddish beer, from the Vienna malt that was clean tasting due to the yeast. As the taste for lighter-flavored beers spread throughout Mexico and the rest of the world in the 20th Century, the character and color of these traditional lagers changed with the times. Today, Vienna-style lagers vary quite widely in color and body, a development that can be seen in today’s import offerings.

(MORE: 9 Breweries You’ll Want to Follow on Instagram)

Craft Brewers Put a Spin on Mexican-style Lagers

Both traditional and modern versions of Mexican-style lagers have been embraced by small and independent craft brewers here in the United States. If you’re planning a Cinco de Mayo party, check out one of these Mexican-style lagers brewed north of the border.

Ska Brewing | Mexican Logger

Ska’s cleverly named Mexican Logger was the first of the American craft Mexican-style lagers, launched in 1999. The Colorado brewery has made quite a success of this 5.2% ABV beer, winning a silver medal at GABF in 2015 in the American-Style or International-Style Pilsener category, and winning bronze in the same field in 2016. Co-founder Dave Thibodeau explains the founders used to be closeted Pacifico drinkers, which lead to their development of an American version of the classic summer style. “With Mexican Logger,” he explains, “we took a style we loved, one-upped it a bit, and threw a craft spin to make it our own.”

Oskar Blues Brewery | Beerito Mexican Lager

Just one year old, Beerito has already become a national favorite for those seeking an all-day summer beer with a Mexican flair. While it boasts the lowest alcohol level on this list at 4% ABV, it’s certainly not low in character. Oskar Blues, the brewery that created Ten Fidy, Old Chub and Dale’s Pale Ale, wasn’t going to skimp on flavor. Aiming for a light beer with deep complexity, the brewery achieved it with a carefully chosen grain bill comprised of German and Colorado-grown malts that produce toasty, nutty flavors complemented by plum and honey notes and crisp German hops.

Great Lakes Brewing Company | Grandes Lagos

Cleveland’s venerable Great Lakes Brewing Company is known for brewing classic European lager and ale styles. Its beers are characterized by refinement and quality rather than daring experimentation, so it was surprising to everyone when it announced in early 2016 a new year-round brew would be a Mexican-style lager brewed with hibiscus flowers. The new 5.4% ABV brew is the more extroverted cousin of its esteemed Eliot Ness Amber Lager, a classic Vienna lager. Where Eliot Ness showcases class, Grandes Lagos goes for charisma, offering lightly tart and sweet floral aromas and flavors from the hibiscus and a charming soft pink glow.

(MORE: Beer Styles for Beginners)

21st Amendment Brewery | El Sully

Named after 21st Amendment co-founder and brewmaster Shaun O’Sullivan, El Sully was inspired by the popular Mexican beers O’Sullivan drank while growing up near the beach in Southern California. It started out as a draft-only brew at the San Francisco taproom before making the jump to cans in 2015. This 4.8% ABV quencher uses German Pilsener malt for a clean, refined base, with just a bit of flaked maize to lighten the body. A Mexican lager yeast strain produces subtle spicy, herbal notes. O’Sullivan said he likes to tell people, “El Sully is what Modelo dreams of when it goes to bed at night.”

Tractor Brewing Company | New Mexican Lager

Brand-spanking-new in 16-ounce cans for May 2017, New Mexican Lager pays tribute to Tractor Brewing’s border-state heritage. The artwork for the cans features a New Mexico landscape and was created by Albuquerque artist David Santiago, who has designed a number of the brewery’s labels. At 5.6% ABV, this lager is designed to be light enough for the dry weather of the Southwest, while having the body to stand up to hearty borderland cuisine. The brewery claims the golden brew is neither Mexican nor American, but an homage to both traditions that is distinctly New Mexican.

Anchor Brewing | Los Gigantes

Mexican beer and the great American pastime come together in the newest offering from the Bay Area’s esteemed Anchor Brewing. Los Gigantes Mexican-Style Lager is a collaboration between the brewery and Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants franchise and marks the second beer to come from the partnership. The first crack of the bat is the sound that signals summer’s arrival for baseball fans and Anchor hopes this 4.5% ABV refresher will taste just like that. Anchor’s first beer offered in 16-ounce. cans, this light lager is brewed with pale malt and flaked maize and seasoned with Cluster and Tettnang hops.

(MORE: 10 Craft Beer Festivals in 2017)

Flying Dog Brewery | Numero Uno Summer Cerveza

Edgy East Coast brewery Flying Dog got the idea for this lager brewed with agave nectar and lime peel from one of its employees, who suggested the brew at the company’s annual retreat. Originally released as Agave Cerveza in 2014, the beer was intended to be a limited seasonal offering but did so well it was added to the year-round portfolio the next year as Summer Cerveza. Brewmaster Ben Clark says more than one-third of the malt bill is comprised of flaked maize, leading to “a crisp, refreshing beer.”

Lone Tree Brewing | Summer Siesta

Colorado’s Lone Tree won a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2015 in the American-Style Lager or Light Lager category for Summer Siesta, and the first-ever cans of the beer should be rolling down the canning line as this article goes to publish. Head brewer Josh Wast says the beer is brewed with Pilsner and six-row malt and “a huge amount of flaked corn.” Sitting at a comfortable 5.3% ABV, Summer Siesta is fermented with a very clean lager yeast and finished with German hops for a crisp, refreshing take on this south-of-the-border style.

Lucky Star Brewery | Ojos Locos Mexican Lager

Travel to Miamisburg, Ohio, to try this draft-only lager (the brewery is planning to bottle it soon) and you just might get the most authentic Mexican drinking experience on this list, because Lucky Star’s taproom is modeled after a Mexican cantina. Authentic tacos, quesadillas and house-made salsas provide appropriate culinary pairings for this 4.8% ABV lager. Ojos Locos is brewed with a Mexican yeast that dries the beer out, leaving an easy gateway beverage for the macro beer drinkers who come in asking for their favorite national brands, says owner and brewmaster Glen Perrine. This clean fermentation profile is accentuated by Saaz hops for a crisp beer that is best enjoyed on Lucky Star’s “Pink Party Patio” when weather allows.

Epic Brewing | Los Locos Lager

Inspired by the audacious Mexican restaurant Los Chingones (Google it) not far from Epic’s Denver brewery, Los Locos Lager is truly unique. The sunny brew features sea salt and lime, making this beer perfect for a day at the beach. Los Locos was initially intended to be a limited collaboration with Los Chingones and was first only available at the restaurant, but Epic brewers soon realized they had a winner on their hands, canned it, and made it available across their distribution territory.

Indeed Brewing | Mexican Honey Imperial Lager

When this Minneapolis brewery first received a shipment of Mexican orange blossom honey, the sticky ingredient wasn’t intended to headline one of its beers. But according to Indeed’s head brewer Josh Bischoff, “We were so impressed with the characteristics of it, we decided to brew a beer to showcase it. Since the honey is from Mexico, the beer snowballed from there and created itself.” This beer clocks in at 8% ABV, and isn’t at all what you expect from a typical Mexican-style lager, providing what the brewery describes as “a citrus and floral fiesta,” one probably better suited to toasting the close of your Cinco de Mayo party than kicking it off.

David NilsenAuthor Website

David Nilsen is a Certified Cicerone and a member of the National Book Critics Circle. He teaches a monthly beer tasting class and leads other professional beer tasting events around his hometown of Greenville, Ohio. He publishes a quarterly beer zine called Fuggles. He lives with his wife, daughter, and a very irritable cat. Read more by this author

The post Like Mexican-Style Lagers? Here are 11 Craft Beers You Should Try appeared first on Miami Beer Scene.

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Inside Panino Taglio | Stephanie Forrer Saddled with debt, mortgages, and payroll, some owners have no choice but to open a new restaurant in the midst of COVID-19 Across the country, the novel coronavirus has closed countless restaurants, temporarily or permanently. Yet, even as the future for food businesses looks dire and restaurants struggle to attain financial support from Congress, new restaurants are opening their doors against economic headwinds. Established names and first-time owners are untangling health and safety requirements and navigating the murky ethical waters of employing staff, all to offer bagels, Vietnamese coffee, Korean fine dining, cheese boards, and pizza to home diners and frontline workers. “Some people think we’re crazy to have our opening day right now,” says Chen Dien of Coffeeholic House in Seattle. Along with his wife Trang Cao, Dien opened the cafe, which specializes in brewing with Vietnamese slow-drip phin filters, for takeout only on March 17, one day after Seattle closed restaurants for dine-in service. The couple closed the cafe soon after, for two weeks, as the situation grew worse. But after Gov. Jay Inslee extended the stay-at-home order until May 4, they decided to reopen for good, without seating and with guide markers on the floor to ensure social distancing. “It’s been our dream for many years to open our own coffee shop,” Dien explains. They simply couldn’t let the business die, and remaining closed wasn’t an option. “It’s very hard for a small business like ours to shut down for a few months and not do anything. We still have bills to pay.” Many others are in a similar spot, opening in the middle of stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures because they had little choice. Amalia Litsa and Joshua Adrian, co-owners of the new Dear Diary Coffeehouse in Austin, decided to open their cafe for takeout on April 4, weeks after the city ordered restaurants closed on March 17. “It’s not like a business just pops up out of nowhere,” Litsa says. “Business loans, personal capital, building out a space for nine months — the business existed well before the brick-and-mortar part of it did.” The partners opened, even while other restaurants around town were closing, partly because they lacked the funds to fully ride out the storm. “No matter what, we’re going to operate at a loss, but even a weak revenue stream would slow that loss,” Litsa says. “It’s our best chance of surviving at all.” Courtesy Coffeeholic House Customers wait at Coffeeholic House Courtesy Coffeeholic House Pick-up orders at Coffeeholic House Even restaurant groups, which could concentrate resources and staff at existing businesses, have decided it sometimes makes more economic sense to add another venue to their rosters. Brendan McGill, chef and owner of Hitchcock in Bainbridge Island, Washington, and sister restaurants in Seattle, had been leasing a space in the Georgetown neighborhood for seven years before soft opening Panino Taglio on March 21. The cafe, an extension of his downtown restaurant Bar Taglio, offers take-and-bake pizzas alongside Italian pantry items. “I had been paying for an empty space, so I figured doing some business in there, especially if it made sense in relation to the other businesses, why not activate it?” McGill says. The team limited expenses as much as possible for the low-lift venture. McGill borrowed equipment from a friend’s warehouse during build-out and employed a delivery person in-house to avoid paying fees to delivery platforms. McGill adds, “The landscape could change constantly as we attempt it, but that’s not much different from the restaurant business anyway.” Without foot traffic, new business owners must rely (even more than usual) on social and digital media to spread the word about opening. “There’s a lot of noise on social right now, but everyone is just at home glued to their phones,” McGill says. “I think there’s good reach right now.” He points out it’s tricky to thread the needle on messaging, encouraging people to pick up food in person while government and health authorities are telling people to stay home. But Panino Taglio offers CSA boxes, wine, prepared items, and pantry goods all in one place, letting shoppers stock up on all their needs in one fell swoop. “We’re just trying to encourage people to do it from a local foods company rather than one of the big chains,” McGill says. “We felt like we needed to try something if we were to sustain everyone.” Andrew Dana, co-owner of Call Your Mother in D.C., actually wanted to keep things quiet while opening a second location of the bagel shop in Capitol Hill on April 15. “This isn’t the opening where you want tons and tons of people there. You want it to feel safe,” he says. But word spread quickly through the neighborhood listservs and from there to local media. “Every food blog in the city has picked up on it because it’s not like there are a lot of other restaurants opening.” To temper the hype and keep the operation safe, he has been cutting off orders after 1,600 bagels, often the day before people can even pick up. Beautiful Rind, a specialty cheese cafe in Chicago, passed all of its inspections on March 19, the day before Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order. Cheesemonger Randall Felts officially opened his business on April 10, even as work crews continued touch-ups on the space. Felts originally planned to service the local community during the first year of business, then launch digital offerings in year two to expand customer reach. Now he says his local customers are digital too, so he’s accelerating his web plans. Beautiful Rind debuted by offering digital classes: Felts delivers all the cheese boards himself (“it’s actually how I started in the restaurant industry, delivering sandwiches,” he says, noting how he’s come full circle), then returns to the shop to lead customers through a tasting. “The big challenge for me right now as a business owner is quickly learning how to be a website manager or a webinar host,” Felts says, though he admits it’s not too different from other ways he’s had to pivot as a business owner — he’s a pretty good plumber, too. That scrappy spirit has allowed small businesses like Dear Diary and Coffeeholic to open with little or no staff, delaying hiring until they can consistently afford full staffs. At Dear Diary, Litsa and Adrian are only opening the shop five days a week. The buffer allows either partner to step in if their one barista becomes ill. But for larger operations, payroll often necessitates opening. On April 10, Corey Lee of three-Michelin-starred Benu in San Francisco launched a preview of the hotly awaited San Ho Won, a Korean concept that was announced last fall. The restaurant was supposed to open this summer, but its recent takeout-only debut, in the form of a set menu, is being orchestrated from the Benu kitchen. Lee tells Eater via email that the business is providing healthcare and a meal program to all furloughed employees across his restaurant empire, as well as financial aid to international workers on visas who don’t qualify for unemployment benefits. “We felt like we needed to try something if we were to sustain everyone’s situation for an unknown period of time,” he says. Opening San Ho Won now as a takeout concept gives staff a chance to perfect recipes for the forthcoming restaurant, and allows Lee to funnel money directly to his workers. Dana similarly had staff in mind when he moved ahead with opening a second Call Your Mother. While the original location is only doing 10 percent less retail business at the moment, he says, the business makes almost half its revenue from farmers markets and catering, which have dried up completely. The shop hasn’t cut employee salaries at all, though, so they needed the second location to make up the difference in revenue. Before opening the second location, Dana sent out a survey to the team asking employees how they got to work, whether they lived with high-risk individuals, and whether they wanted to work at all. The responses informed managers’ decision to open and allowed them to identify employees who could safely walk to the new location rather than taking public transit to the original shop. They’re also paying some employees to work from home, helping maintain the new online ordering system and providing customer support over the phone. New business owners may be excited about big plans for the future, but for now they too must adjust expectations. “There’s a lot of good stuff we want to launch, but we’re waiting for the best timing,” Dien says, though he remains optimistic. “We’ve been waiting for more than a year already, so it’s okay to wait for a little bit more.” In the summer, he hopes Coffeeholic can offer more drinks, like watermelon juice, coconut coffee, and lychee or passion fruit tea. Both the original Call Your Mother shop and the new one are limiting offerings to streamline operations for reduced kitchen staff: The new location only offers whole bagels with cream cheese. Felts also cut down offerings, and he had to pivot to feature domestic cheese and charcuterie as the pandemic affected international trade with European suppliers. “We’ve been able to transition more to those guys and spread the love as best we can,” he says. Felts has also worked to incorporate small, local partners, offering online pairing classes featuring beer and cider makers. Randall Felts Randall Felts leading a digital cheese tasting The Dear Diary menu reflects shifting supply in Austin, too. “There didn’t used to be this much demand for growlers,” Litsa explains, “but now every coffee shop in town is offering cold brew growlers, so they’re really hard to get from any distributor.” She and Adrian looked for alternative packaging on Amazon and came upon plastic honey bears, popular among home beekeepers. They now package cold brew in 22-ounce bears and to-go syrups in 8-ounce versions. As fellow coffee shops have closed, though, Litsa has also noticed the opposite problem: local bakeries and caterers with nowhere to sell their goods. Rather than spread small orders between a lot of suppliers, Litsa has decided to concentrate on developing quality relationships through substantial orders from a select few partners. Litsa argues that new restaurants are particularly flexible to the changing situation. “In a way we’re blessed by having less business because it gives us more time to wrap our heads around what to do next and we can experiment without pissing off as many people,” she says. “By the time we have more business, either because corona has lifted or our economy has morphed, we’ll be really frickin’ good at what we do.” Litsa brought her sewing machine to the cafe to produce masks during slow hours; she sells the masks alongside coffee. There are plans for goodie boxes of art supplies and postcards. “Corona is indefinite. It could be a year. It could be two years. It could be the economy is forever changed. We just need to accept that now and adapt,” Litsa says. “We’re bleeding over the edges of a strict coffee shop definition.” Even as they work constantly to adapt to the rapidly changing situation, many argue their businesses are positioned to provide hope and positive energy, both in demand as much as food. “It’s a nice reminder that there’s something to look forward to,” Lee says of the pop-up, “instead of offering altered versions of existing concepts and being reminded just how much our lives have been ruptured by this pandemic.” That positivity flows in all directions. Many owners are passing along that goodwill through charity work, sending food and drinks to hospital workers or those in need. Customers also provide owners with the necessary confidence to open and stay open. “I know I seem a little crazy to be opening a restaurant right now,” Felts says. “But when people come in and thank me for doing that and they’re excited to see the food, to get some cheese and just have a little happiness, it makes it totally worth it.” from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2zLof0z

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