♪♪
Remember the dark days of March 2020?
100,000 restaurants closed overnight.
6 million restaurant jobs disappeared.
How did eating establishments and cooking schools survive during COVID?
They pivoted.
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And then the Singapore seafood noodles.
Seattle's leading restaurateur Tom Douglas experienced an upheaval
he could never have predicted.
When COVID happened.
Of course, we didn't know anything what was going to go on.
None of us did.
We had let
860 of our 869 people go.
So we had nine people, which we called the pilot light team.
It was very traumatic.
(Garage door opening)
They stationed themselves at Douglas's warehouse in Ballard
and took action.
The building had access to the outside through the loading dock
and easy curbside pickup.
So they built a kitchen
and started ramping up takeout service.
We were doing about 450 a day,
and then at that same time,
we signed up with World Central Kitchen out of D.C.
and started producing 600 meals a day
for them to distribute throughout the area
because everything closed.
People forget.
Douglas estimates the To-Go business
generated more than 50% of his income during this time
and is still up 10 to 20% today.
And we'll see what happens as we rebuild our company.
Another crucial pivot for Douglas took place
at his cooking school
Hot Stove Society.
Located in Belltown,
the popular school had already been offering
in-person classes for over eight years.
When COVID hit, we went virtual within two weeks.
Had all of our cameras and everything ready to go.
Don't mess with your raviolis too much
when they float, that doesn't mean that they're done.
For the first year, they also shipped out
Pre-Portioned meal kits to clients
to go along with the lesson.
We did that for anywhere from, you know,
a small group of 6 to 600.
We love to use shallots instead of onions
because it has kind of that flavor in between garlic and onion.
Going virtual did present some challenges,
as instructor Annie Elmore discovered.
You have many different people on Zoom, right?
And they all have different skills and they all have different kitchens
and they all have different equipment.
Let me know if you are like halfway there
or almost done or give a thumbs up.
Ready to go.
But it all worked out and classes filled up quickly.
I adjusted my recipes to a little bit simpler
and focused more on technique.
I'm just going to take the tops and I'm going to rough chop.
And one of the things that hot stoves, we love to teach people techniques
so that when they leave here,
they take something permanent with them.
And I'm going to take my endive and I'm going to cut it
lengthwise in half.
Virtual classes, I would say they were probably mentally
more important than anything
for me, for the team, for the process of getting back on our feet.
Who doesn't like deep fried food? Come on.
Smaller cooking schools also had
to make critical adjustments to stay afloat during this time.
The Pantry, located in Ballard, opened in 2011
as a cooking school with an emphasis on community gathering.
When classes went dark, they quickly converted
their class recipes into beautiful takeaway meals.
There were definitely some ups and downs
figuring out what worked out well
and what didn't.
And we were, you know, trying to
also be able to give back to the community.
We were cooking for like over 100 people every day,
so it was a big change.
(🎶)
They also pivoted from in-person cooking classes to virtual ones,
a move that allowed them to stay engaged with their community.
We're gonna slap it and stretch it slowly at the same time.
All these changes made it possible for places like The Pantry
to finally open their doors to students again.
We're making three different pasta shapes,
and each gets its own filling and its own sauce.
We want this to smooth out.
We want it to get sprungy.
(🎶)
Over at Hot Stove Society
classes are also back in full swing.
I want it a little bit thicker than that,
so I'm not going to press as hard.
So there's a little bit of thicker.
Growth is happening and restaurants are opening up again.
We've been able to reacquire some of our amazing people
that we lost with the shutdown.
That is super cool.
No doubt the food industry will continue to adapt
and will keep some of the changes they've made.
But one thing's for sure
there's no substitute for gathering in person.
Being around other people and being able to have that,
that community and conversation and, you know,
doing an activity together has been really exciting.
And, you know, it brings people a lot of joy.