Efforts abound across the U.S. to help keep America’s restaurant and bar workers and members of their surrounding communities financially afloat as the Covid-19 pandemic threatens the industry.
Musician Liam Kazar initially recorded song requests for a $25 donation each, then recorded an entire album, with sales to benefit the staff of Hungry Brain bar in Chicago.
The 26-year-old Kansas City, Mo. resident is a former Hungry Brain bartender who has maintained friendships with the workers at the live music venue.
Taking requests via Instagram and linking to the bar’s GoFundMe campaign, he’s raised $1,500 so far delivering acoustic covers of songs by Bill Withers, Aerosmith, Three Dog Night, Bob Dylan, Prince, and others.
“I’m pretty emotionally invested in that place,” said Kazar, who found himself needing to keep busy after all of his gigs were canceled.
“I wanted to do something,” he said. “I'm not very tech-savvy. So this was really the only thing I could think of. I’m a pretty quick study when it comes to learning a song.”
Technology plays a role in the increasingly popular diningatadistance.com, launched last week by a pair of Chicagoans to help people find restaurants and bars open for takeout, curbside pickup, and delivery in Chicago that quickly went international and on Monday added a section to find local farms.
Sean Lynch, who makes websites, apps, and other digital tools as a project manager at Huge digital agency, and Jenn Galdes, founder of the hospitality-focused Grapevine PR, started the site after connecting on Twitter two days prior, having discovered they were working on similar projects.
Starting with 65 restaurants last Monday, the site covered 30 cities after a week and has another 138 cities waiting to be added, Galdes said.
“It’s grown like wildfire,” she said, adding that the system needs volunteers in cities to make sure listings are legitimate. “We need curators. We need local people in each city. That’s our holdup right now; finding people.”
Also in Chicago to help employees impacted by closures and decreased business, Barrel Age Hospitality restaurant consulting company is providing weekly meal kits for two for all of its staff, while employees from The Dandy Crown and AJ Hudson’s Public House get a complimentary meal each day from AJ Hudson’s for carryout. Pacific Standard Time is providing a grocery pick up program for its staff.
Restaurant reservation and rewards platform Seated has launched a hotline to help restaurant operators get advice from a team of industry professionals from hospitality finance and accounting advisor CohnReznick and industry law firm Golenbock Eisman Assor Bell & Peskoe. Restaurants can visit seatedhotline.com and submit a question to get advice from Golenbock chairman Andrew Peskoe, CohnReznick hospitality partner Stephanie O’Rourk and their support teams.
Other efforts include:
- HenDough chicken and donuts restaurant in Greenville, S.C. and Hendersonville, N.C., is launching a “pay what you can” day with all proceeds going to cover employee pay for the day, while 15 percent of proceeds from app orders are being donated to Greenville nonprofits.
- Hawkers Asian Street Fare, with operations in Florida and Atlanta, is offering service industry workers a 50 percent discount for takeout and dine-in foods.
- Evanston, Ill.-based Feast & Imbibe and Soul & Smoke are providing free meals to restaurant employees.
- Waterstone Pizza, located inside the Craddock Terry Hotel on the Bluff in Lynchburg, Va., is donating food products to hotel and restaurant employees in packaged meals.
- Bartesian is donating 25 percent of net proceeds from sales of its premium cocktail makers through April 17 to supplement incomes of bartenders through the USBG National Charity Foundation.
from Foodservice https://ift.tt/2wqIorz
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