Communal Table

It's nearly the first of the month and for most businesses (and people) the rent is due. But what happens if you're a restaurant owner who has had to scale back or shut down entirely due to coronavirus? Can you just not pay, or is there anything the government is working on to help? Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman happens to be responsibly socially distancing alongside an expert on the matter: her husband Douglas Wagner, who is a 25-year veteran of the New York City real estate industry. As the subway rumbled under their Brooklyn apartment and one of their dogs kept offering damp toys, they discussed the best ways for communicating with landlords during this difficult time, what risks commercial and residential renters face, what rights they have, and what help might be coming along. Douglas Wagner https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglas-wagner-3466985b/ The F&W Pro Guide to Coronavirus: What Restaurants Should Know https://www.foodandwine.com/news/coronavirus-restaurant-guide-fwpro The F&W Pro Newslette

Angie Mar arrived back in New York City from a stint cooking in London, and found a restaurant landscape completely changed. After a painful period of self quarantine for the safety of the people around her, she put on her game face, went to her restaurant, and made some tough but necessary decisions to ensure a future for the business, and the financial stability of her team. The Beatrice Inn is known and lauded as a luxurious, over-the-top, and spendy place where the atmosphere is as much a draw as the food, but like any restaurant, it operates on razor-thin margins and faces an uncertain future. As the team prepped for service, Mar took a moment with Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman to talk about adapting the restaurant's distinctive cuisine for delivery and take-out, the human cost of the pandemic on the hospitality workforce, and why it's important to acknowledge grief. The Beatrice Inn https://thebeatriceinn.com/take-out-menu/ The Beatrice Inn Employee Relief Fund https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-

When Steve Palmer and Mickey Bakst started Ben's Friends, they had no idea that it would be the force that it is today. What began as an industry-specific recovery meeting in Charleston, SC has since transformed into a national lifeline for chefs, servers, bartenders, and other hospitality workers trying to achieve and maintain sobriety in an industry that often celebrates and enables excess and masochism. Though the meetings until now have been held weekly and face-to-face in the cities that host chapters, they're now available via Zoom on a local level, and—for the first time—nationally. Palmer spoke with Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman about the particular struggles that restaurant workers are facing in isolation, and why human connection is vital for sobriety and mental health. Ben's Friends https://www.bensfriendshope.com/ Say Grace https://aboutstevepalmer.com/book/ The F&W Pro Guide to Coronavirus: What Restaurants Should Know https://www.foodandwine.com/news/coronavirus-restaurant-guide-fwpro

Ming Tsai is one of the best-known chefs in America, but that doesn't insulate him from the onslaught of challenges and unknowns that the restaurant industry is facing right now. Rather, he's had to take quick action to take care of his employees and community—especially the most vulnerable people—and knows he can't do it alone. Tsai spoke with Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman over the phone to talk about the actions we all need to take, the importance of lobbying our elected officials, and how to keep our physical and emotional health in check. Restaurant Strong Fund https://www.thegreghillfoundation.org/restaurantstrong/ Ming Tsai https://www.ming.com/ Advice from My Therapist on Breaking Down and Staying Balanced During a Pandemic https://medium.com/@katkinsman/advice-from-my-therapist-on-breaking-down-and-staying-balanced-during-a-pandemic-a441f5cc47ee The F&W Pro Guide to Coronavirus: What Restaurants Should Know https://www.foodandwine.com/news/coronavirus-restaurant-guide-fwpro

Restaurant workers are usually the last people to ask for help because they're too busy serving others. On today's Communal Table podcast, as COVID-19 spreads across the country, Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman shares resources and coping strategies for chefs, servers, bartenders, and other hospitality people who are fighting for their lives and the industry they love and rely on. Matt Jennings: It's Time to Demand Government Action to Save the Restaurant Industry https://www.foodandwine.com/fwpro/restaurant-industry-demand-government-action-coronavirus Now What: Business Ops Guide for Restaurants https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK76Z2Ufsqg&feature=youtu.be The F&W Pro Guide to Coronavirus: What Restaurants Should Know https://www.foodandwine.com/news/coronavirus-restaurant-guide-fwpro Industry United https://www.facebook.com/groups/Industryunited/ Gig Workers Collective: Resources state-by-state https://www.gigworkerscollective.org/covid-19-resources Unemployment Benefits and Sites by State http

As COVID-19 spreads across the country, restaurant workers and owners are in uncharted waters trying to figure out how to take care of their employees, stay in business, and feed their community. Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman spoke by phone from her home in Brooklyn with Salem, MA pastry chef and Industry United co-founder Kate Holowchik and Amanda Toups, co-owner of Toups' Meatery in New Orleans about how the industry is coming together in these trying times, and what they see for the road ahead. Note: Because the podcast had to be recorded in a less than ideal setup, over the phone, the sound quality may not be as crisp as usual. We're all doing our best. Industry United: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Industryunited/ Toups Meatery: https://toupsmeatery.com/ In The Rooms: https://www.intherooms.com/home/ Crisis Text Line: Text #741741 any time for quick and free crisis counseling. The F&W Pro Guide to Coronavirus: What Restaurants Should Know: https://www.foodandwine.com/news/coronavirus-restaurant

During times of crisis, restaurants are there for us. They're where we celebrate, gather, catch-up, connect, and nourish ourselves body, mind, and spirit. At this unprecedented and uncertain moment when people are told to socially isolate because of coronavirus, many of them are in danger of shutting down for good. Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman spoke by phone from her home in Brooklyn with Houston chefs Chris Shepherd and Ryan Lachaine, NYC chef Amanda Cohen, and No Kid Hungry's National Director, Chef and Culinary Professional Relations Jenny Dirksen about how they're supporting their teams and communities during this time, and what the dining public can do to make sure the restaurants they love will still be around. Note: Because the podcast had to be recorded in a less than ideal setup, over the phone, the sound quality may not be as crisp as usual. Lachaine's audio was lost despite two recordings, but we did our best to paraphrase. We're all doing the best we can. Ryan Lachaine: https://www.riel

In addition to writing books, playing gigs as a professional musician, hosting podcasts, performing one-man shows, and appearing on TV shows like Masterchef and Top Chef, Jay Rayner has served the last 20 years as restaurant critic for The Guardian. The question he has received with extreme regularity: "What would you eat for your last meal?" Rayner made it his business to contemplate that question, and embarked on an intercontinental journey to explore the foods that brought him the most pleasure. Rayner was recently in New York City as the first cases of coronavirus were being reported in the United States, and he sat down for a conversation about his book, the role of restaurant criticism, and supporting your local Chinatown.

Whether you're away from home for business or pleasure, you're in a vulnerable spot when you stay in a hotel, away from your normal patterns and dependent on other people. Sarah Robbins knew hospitality was her calling, got an ROTC scholarship to put herself through school to learn all about it, and has spent her entire career finding ways to make restaurant and hotel guests—and the people who work in them—feel taken care of. Robbins, now the COO of 21c Museum Hotels, sat down (fittingly enough in a hotel room) during last year's SXSW for a conversation about her days wrangling celebrity requests at Tribeca Grill, the mistakes she made along the way, choosing empathy over meanness, and how the military taught her to be a great manager.

Emma Bengtsson has always been stubborn and driven, and in many ways, it's served her well. Growing up as an elite athlete, she developed the intense discipline it took to rise to the top, and when she started working in kitchens, the same rules applied. She worked through the often intense pain of a spinal injury for many years, rarely asking for help and steadily getting worse. When her Michelin-starred restaurant Aquavit closed for renovation this past summer, she finally had surgery. She was more than ready for the physical part, but having to take time off and rest—that was a whole different story. Bengtsson opened up about learning to lean on other people, what it taught her as a leader, and the effect an open kitchen design has on a team dynamic.

When people in the restaurant industry worry that a friend is in trouble, they call Steve Palmer. He and fellow Charleston restaurant veteran Mickey Baskt formed the industry-specific recovery group Ben's Friends after the death of a dear friend, and they've vowed not to stop until there's a branch in every state. Palmer sat down for an emotional and honest talk about addiction and sobriety, supporting the wellbeing of people who work in restaurants, and his stunning new memoir, Say Grace.

None of us loves talking about how we failed. We may obsess about these flubs, missteps, errors in judgment, and mortifying mistakes on constant loop in our heads, but generally, most of us aren't going out of our way to shine a spotlight on our biggest mess-ups. But how else would we improve as business people, artisans, leaders, partners, and human beings if we didn't examine where we stumbled, and how we got up again? Chefs, restaurateurs, writers, sommeliers, and food world luminaries sat down with me at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen and on previous episodes of Communal Table to share moments of painful setbacks, and the lessons they learned to move forward.

By the time you read this, Katie Button will be back at her restaurant and bagel shop in Asheville, NC, but she was away for a few weeks, in residence at Chefs Club in New York City. That's a terrifying thing to do when it's your own business, but Button trusts her staff at Cúrate Tapas Bar and Button & Co. Bagels, and they get to develop some new skills while she's away. It's important to her to invest in her team's development in all different ways—like paying a living wage, offering healthcare, creating incentives for employees who stick around for a certain amount of years—both because she cares, and because it makes her take a good, hard look at the kind of life she'd like for herself. During her tenure in NYC, Button opened up about the importance of therapy, the impact of a "vampire schedule" when you have a family, and the pressures of owning a business.

When Kat Kinsman first interviewed Sean Brock in 2011, she couldn't imagine sitting onstage for a with him eight years later, because she honestly didn't believe he'd live that long. Since that first conversation, Brock has gone through illness, intervention, and the day-to-day work of recovery, and he's been speaking about the pain, reckoning, accountability, and self care that goes along with it in the hope that people can find a way forward for themselves and the people in their lives. Kinsman and Brock sat down for an extremely personal public conversation at Blackberry Farm for the Sam Beall Fellows Program annual Passing the Torch fundraiser.

Does Jamie Oliver ever sleep? He's a best-selling cookbook author, wildly famous TV presenter, passionate foodways activist, father of five children, and prolific product spokesperson, but in recent years has faced the collapse of his longstanding restaurant chain in the UK, as well as plenty of public scrutiny. On a jam-packed trip to New York to promote his newest book, Ultimate Veg, Oliver sat down for a heartfelt talk about the emotional impact of the closure, what went wrong—and right—and what he hopes his next act holds.

At Blackberry Farm in Walland, TN, many, many hands go into crafting magical moments for guests—many of whom return year after year, and plenty for whom this is a bucket-list trip. As executive chef, Cassidee Dabney is responsible for a major part of that experience, and while there's nothing she would rather be doing, the position comes with a lot of pressure. This past summer, Dabney sat down on the porch of the Pencil Cob cottage to talk about the region's cuisine; cooking for people with high expectations; the tragic loss of Blackberry's proprietor, Sam Beall; and why she leads a group scream in the dining room.

On January 7, Trish Nelson and her former colleagues from the Spotted Pig gathered around a podium in the offices of New York State Attorney General Letitia James to announce the end of a months-long investigation that uncovered a hostile work environment and "severe and pervasive incidents of unwanted touching and unwelcome sexual advances" by majority owner Ken Friedman. While the settlement provided some closure for the former employees, there's still a tremendous amount of work left to do to if they want to heal personally and move the industry to a healthier, safer place. Nelson sat down with me for a raw, emotional conversation about the culture of fear that keeps vulnerable workers from speaking out, her decision to break the silence, and her hope for the future of the industry she loves. Note: This episode contains mentions of emotional and sexual abuse. If you need to talk to someone, Crisis Text Line is available 24/7 at #741741 or via Facebook Messenger, and The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Net

When Paul Finn was a touring musician, restaurant and bar gigs were a perfect fit for his ever-changing schedule, and his gregarious personality. He found it useful to approach the job as another form of performance, but worried about the toll that took. Finn heard over and over that servers and bartenders should just check everything at the door, but thought, "If you're not bringing your personal life to work, you're not bringing yourself to work." Drawing from his deep hospitality background, he developed the Mental Health Mise en Place system to set up each day for success, and is now ready to share it with folks in the industry and beyond. Check out his website here: Personalmise.com

It took one civil law class for Jessica Craig to figure out that she didn't want to spend time behind a desk. Luckily for the sweets-loving diners of New York City, she's found her calling as the powerhouse executive pastry chef at L'Artusi, and a role model for young people in the industry. Craig sat down for a heartfelt talk about nurturing talent, the importance of Jamaican cuisine, the heartbreaking history of shoebox lunches, and why she rocks out to Beyonce with her team.

Opening just one long-lived, much-loved restaurant in a super-competitive city would be a dream come true for most chefs. Along with his One-Off Hospitality business partners, Paul Kahan has been keeping Chicagoans happily fed since 1997, with restaurants like Blackbird, Publican, Avec (and plenty others) each offering their own distinct menu, vibe, and area of particular expertise. Yet rather than burning out from all the tasks at hand, Kahan manages to stay impressively balanced, focused, and always evolving. While he was on the road to promote his new cookbook Cooking for Good Times, Kahan sat down for an open-hearted conversation about leadership, why humility is the key to enduring partnerships, and the power of live music.