San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
A boom in chefs giving back
They find new meaning with new partners
When shelterinplace orders were announced March 16, Paul Einbund was unsure whether to temporarily close his Mission District restaurant, the Morris. “I’ve been stressing a lot about whether or not we should be open,” even for takeout and delivery, Einbund says. He adds that while there are lots of upsides to staying open, the downside is the safety risk for his employees, which is the most important consideration.
But working with SF New Deal, a new organization that purchases meals from restaurants and partners with community organizations to deliver them to the elderly, the unhoused and less fortunate during the pandemic, gave Einbund his raison d’etre. “Knowing that we are feeding human beings that might otherwise go hungry makes that decision easier. We must help and we must do what we can. And what we do is feed people, now more than ever before.” A number of new organizations like SF New Deal have popped up during the pandemic to help restaurants stay operational by feeding health care workers or those in need. East Bay Feed ER connects restaurants with local hospital workers and first responders on the receiving end; Frontline Foods, in partnership with World Central Kitchen, also provides meals to health care workers. The state initiative High Roads Kitchen is similar, with the caveat that participating restaurants must also promise to provide livable wages for workers.
Generally, the organization raises funds so restaurants can buy ingredients and hire workers, and then connects them to organizations that feed the community. It’s hard to find a local restaurant that hasn’t taken part or created its own similar program. For many, these organizations provide much more than a steady stream of income: They provide meaning.
“It really fits in with our ethos — we are a community restaurant,” says Sarah Kirnon of Miss Ollie’s in Oakland, who has been working with the organization Off Their Plate to provide 100 to 160 meals a week to health care workers at Highland Hospital, San Leandro Hospital and other hospitals.
Christian Ciscle, who operates the popup SF Chickenbox out of a bar in SoMa, says working with SF New Deal, which was originally funded by a $1 million investment from Twitch CEO Emmett Shear, has been crucial to sustaining his business.
“It enables businesses to pay the bills and put people back on payroll,” he says.
Ciscle also finds the work more rewarding than making food for tech company meetings, like his restaurant did before shelter in place. The people he’s feeding now actually need to be fed.
Ciscle always tried to give back even before the pandemic. He’s run an annual chicken wing eating contest over the past decade to raise funds for local nonprofits like Homeless Youth Alliance and youth advocate Huckleberry House. “There’s so much money and disparity, and it’s ridiculous not to take that money from people and use it for people who need it,” Ciscle says.
Ciscle and Einbund also see the decision to stay open as playing a role in keeping up the supply chain of purveyors and farmers. By feeding those in need, they are able to order from their vendors and support the immediate food community.
Although it took a pandemic to force such solutions to food insecurity, the bright side is that it shows solutions can be found. What remains to be seen is whether these programs disappear once things start to normalize. Mourad Lahlou, owner of Aziza and Mourad in San Francisco, hopes not. One of his primary drivers for working with SF New Deal is that it allows him to employ his undocumented workers.
“A lot of people on my staff are getting unemployment right now and getting money from the stimulus package. But the people who got really f— are the undocumented workers. Those are the ones who have been paying taxes, paying into unemployment funds, but once the pandemic started these people couldn’t apply for unemployment,” he says.
(On May 18, California began offering undocumented immigrants the opportunity to apply for pandemic relief.)
Providing meals directly to the needy has also changed the way Lahlou looks at food. Lahlou, whose Financial District restaurant, Mourad, has earned Michelin stars and was recently nominated for a James Beard Award for best chef: California, cooks elevated Moroccan cuisine through a California lens. There are tweezers and smears and caviar.
He admits that type of cooking can be disconnecting: “We’re not grounded anymore when you just cook for a certain type of person.” But the work he’s been doing has recentered him: “When you cook for people in shelters, it gives you a different perspective on what it means to cook food.”
Lahlou immigrated to San Francisco after graduating high school without speaking English or having any experience in a professional kitchen. He started cooking because he missed his home country of Morocco. Cooking through the pandemic has brought him back to the reason he started cooking in the first place.
“This is what food and a meal is supposed to do to people — sustain them and bring them happiness,” he says. “It’s not about impressing anyone or the accolades, it’s about helping people smile, survive and feel food secure.”
“When you cook for people in shelters, it gives you a different perspective on what it means to cook food.” Mourad Lahlou, Mourad restaurant