Indoor warnings, PPP2 fudge, Top Chef chefs, and more...
Family Meal - Tuesday, February 9th, 2021
Hello Tuesday,
Today’s Tuesday edition is going out to everyone (paid or not) because Friday is Chinese New Year here in Hong Kong, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to get a newsletter out. We shall see.
Let’s get to it…
What Guests Are Reading: The Case Against Indoor Dining – Just in time for the return of indoor dining in a lot of states, three big pieces came out late last week with the same message: Don’t dine indoors.
My message: Don’t shoot the messenger!
Headline in Eater: “The New Risks of Dining Out.” Conclusion from Elazar Sontag: “More contagious variants of COVID-19 call for heightened vigilance and, in some ways, adherence to even stricter measures than the ones we’re already so familiar with.” Sontag cites the NYT COVID tracking tool that currently has NYC at the highest risk level on their scale and says, “Because of the extremely high risk of Covid in New York City, even outdoor dining and outdoor bars are unsafe.”
NB: A quick sample run around that NYT tool shows it recommends against outdoor dining in LA, SF and Napa, Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis, DC, and I’m sure many, many more…
Headline in the New Yorker: “The Indoor-Dining Debate Isn’t a Debate at All.” Reasoning from Helen Rosner: “We know what happened last time [we loosened indoor dining rules]; we know the limits of what this move can fix, and the extent of whom it can harm. There is a flip side to the fallacy of individual responsibility during the pandemic: just because we’ve been given permission to do something doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do.”
Headline in ProPublica: “Why Opening Restaurants Is Exactly What the Coronavirus Wants Us to Do.” This, from Caroline Chen is maybe the most damning. In discussing the new COVID variants crossing the globe Chen says, “I interviewed 10 scientists for this story and was surprised by the vehemence of some of their language. ‘Are you sure it could be that bad?’ I asked, over and over.” Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Georgetown, told Chen that if indoor dining is reopened, “I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say the worst could be yet to come.”
Welp.
Eater disabled comments site-wide a little while ago, ProPublica doesn’t seem to have a comments section, and I don’t think the New Yorker ever did (who would police the umlauts?), but you can view our divided restaurant nation on full display via comments on Eater’s Instagram page (“Eater has become a far left political crap spewing place.”) and Rosner’s Tweets (“Moronic fascist.”) and Instagrams about the respective pieces.
Fair warning, and this is just a hunch, but I’m not sure all the commenters read the articles… And you definitely should before you pass judgement on the arguments being made.
The Relief – FYI: If you were under the impression that PPP round 2 rules preclude your loan application because your business “launched” after the original deadline, Tim Carman has some moving-goalpost news in WaPo: “Despite the tough talk on rules, the SBA and participating banks have shown flexibility in applying them. The official rules state a business had to be ‘in operation’ by Feb. 15, 2020. But SBA spokeswoman [Shannon Giles] says lenders have discretion in how they interpret that language: Some banks use the company’s first day of business, while others use the day the company was incorporated.”
The (FEED) Opportunity – And if you’re looking to get involved in (and get income from) the new FEED Act (wherein the federal government pays restaurants to feed “vulnerable communities”), No Kid Hungry is starting to put out some helpful content on nuts and bolts. Still a little vague at this point, but if you jump in around the 25 minute mark on this panel, World Central Kitchen’s Nate Mook and Boston chef Douglass Williams discuss logistics on the coming wave of public-private partnerships. Watch this (that) space.
The (MAD) Opportunity – In Denmark, René Redzepi’s “MAD Academy… is looking to hire a Program Manager with teaching responsibilities for its Environment & Sustainability program. The position reports to the Academy Director [Magnus Nilsson]... This is a full-time position based in Copenhagen beginning Spring 2021.” Details here.
The (Media) Opportunity – As the SF Chronicle’s Justin Phillips moves on from the Food section to a role as a columnist, his old job as a Food Reporter is up for grabs, as is an Assistant Food and Wine Editor gig. Editor Serena Dai says you can DM her with questions, as does critic Soleil Ho. Good luck, all! (Mr. Phillips, as a reader, you will be missed!)
For TV Fans – Announced yesterday, the line-up for the April 1st premiere of Top Chef Season 18 in Portland, OR is… Brittanny Anderson (Richmond); Avishar Barua (Columbus); Dawn Burrell (Houston); Gabe Erales (Austin); Nelson German (Oakland); Byron Gomez (Aspen); Sasha Grumman (Houston); Roscoe Hall (Birmingham); Sara Hauman (Portland, OR); Kiki Louya (Detroit); Maria Mazon (Tucson) Shota Nakajima (Seattle) Gabriel Pascuzzi (Portland, OR); Jamie Tran (LV); and Chris Viaud (Milford, NH). Trailer and promotional details on Bravo. Good luck, all!
Some Sad News – “Joe Allen, who parlayed a modest pub on the edge of Manhattan’s theater district into a restaurant empire that at its height stretched as far as Paris, died on Sunday in Hampton, N.H. He was 87.” Joyce Purnick has that obituary in the NYT. “In its heyday, Joe Allen (and later Orso, which opened in 1983) attracted a star-studded list of regulars, including Al Pacino, Stephen Sondheim, John Guare and Elaine Stritch, with whom Mr. Allen was romantically involved for a time.”
And last but not least – If you missed the Super Bowl ads, here’s Cointreau’s collab with IRC; Uber Eats with Wayne’s World; and DoorDash with Marquis de Lafayette and Super Grover. There are a lot of bad takes going around about how shocking it is that the big delivery companies spent millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads, when we all know about the struggle at the coalface. My much, much, much better take is that it’s not the marketing spend that you’re angry about, it’s what they’re marketing. And on top of that, getting angry about this particular money is kind of silly. As Kristen Hawley points out, while a 30-second Super Bowl ad cost $5.5M this year, “DoorDash spent $610m on sales and marketing in the first nine months of 2020.”
But either way, please remember: If you’re trying to save restaurants with a hashtag (and is there any other way), the IRC and Cointreau would like you to tag love letters to restaurants with #saverestaurants, while the James Beard Foundation and the History Channel would prefer you #saveourrestaurants.
As I always say, #UnitedWeSaveRestaurants #Together.
And that’s it for today!
Gong hei fat choy! I will see you here Tuesday for the first Family Meal in the Year of the Ox.
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