10 JULY 2020
Support these key coalitions with a donation: Independent Restaurant Coalition: saverestaurants.com // Tennessee Action for
Hospitality: tnactionforhospitality.com // Bay Area Hospitality Coalition: bayareahospitalitycoalition.com // Seattle Restaurants
United: seattlerestaurantsunited.com // ROAR: roarnewyork.org // Independent Hospitality Coalition: independenthospitality.orgHOW TO HELPBY THE BEGINNING OF MARCH, the world was in desperate
need of hand sanitizer. According to recommendations
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
sanitizer should contain an ethanol content of at least
60%, which meant that distilleries and breweries, who
produce ethanol naturally, had a unique opportunity to
convert their supply into sanitizer. The only problem? It
was illegal. After the distilled spirits industry appealed to
the FDA to change its regulations, a temporary policy
allowing distilleries to manufacture alcohol-based
sanitizer was issued; meanwhile, the Alcohol and Tobacco
Tax and Trade Bureau waived a law requiring distilleries to
obtain permits to produce sanitizer. As of press time, more
than 800 distilleries in the U.S. had transitioned to
producing sanitizer, from global corporations like
Anheuser-Busch and Bacardí to local distilleries like Hotel
Ta n go in Indianapolis and Westland in Seattle. Some, like
Destilería Serrallés in Ponce, Puerto Rico, donated pre-
bottled sanitizer directly to hospitals and first responders.
Others, like Durham Distillery, allowed the public to
purchase sanitizer online for curbside pickup. In Chicago,
Koval Distillery started with donating sanitizer but ended
up launching a GoFundMe campaign to help meet their
community’s demand, all while continuing to employ
their team. Koval President Sonat Birnecker Hart says that
the process showed true teamwork: Companies donated
bottles; Choose Chicago supplied drivers to make drop-offs
around the city; Kone Corporation provided a truck and
one of their engineers to help with deliveries; health care
transportation company MedSpeed delivered sanitizer for
free to hospitals; breweries even donated beer for Koval to
distill into sanitizer. “It was an amazing community-wide
effort,” Hart says.AS COVID-19 DECIMATED BUSINESSES from coast to coast,
chefs asked the same question: “Now what?” In Nashville,
finding the answer started with a group text from Butcher
& Bee chef Bryan Lee Weaver that grew to include chefs
from all over the city, including 2018 F&W Best New Chef
Julia Sullivan, who formed a coalition: Tennessee Action
for Hospitality. “We launched a website to share our
immediate needs so people could send a letter asking
Tennessee congressmen, senators, and the governor to
listen,” Sullivan says. “Within the week, we had over 4,
people reach out.” TAH is just one of the many coalitions
that formed to help the industry survive shelter-in-place
orders: In New York City, chefs like David Chang, JJ
Johnson, and Tom Colicchio helped found ROAR, Relief
Opportunities for All Restaurants; in Seattle, over 100
independently owned restaurants and bars launched
Seattle Restaurants United; in San Francisco, Brandon Jew
helped organize the Bay Area Hospitality Coalition, which
connects hospitality workers around the country with
relief resources and garners support for restaurants in the
Bay Area. While many coalitions are focused on immediate
needs, Sullivan says this organizing will have a lasting
impact on restaurant business models. “We have to start
thinking about a safety net for the next storm.”TheOrganizers
By banding together to form coalitions, these chefs
created systems of solidarity and support that are
destined to outlast the pandemic.TheDistillers
Across the country, spirits producers big and small
shifted their resources toward keeping us safe.Read more about the Independent Restaurant Coalition in “1,
Chefs Go to Washington” on p. 76.