Dish City S2E3: “The Big Pivot”

Ruth Tam [00:00:00] I can't really hear you.

Patrick Fort [00:00:02] Volume or connection?

Ruth Tam [00:00:05] Connection.

Patrick Fort [00:00:08] This is so strange. You sound pristine to me.

Ruth Tam [00:00:12] Sad trombone sound.

Patrick Fort [00:00:15] We've spent the last 10 minutes or so trying to get our Zoom call or our
Slack call or whatever method of communication we were gonna try to do to work so we could
record this episode.

Ruth Tam [00:00:29] Yeah, it's...This is funny to me because like what, three months ago you and
I were like making a TikTok to announce season two of what we thought was going to be season
two of Dish City. And we were like, this is what you think being a food podcast host looks like. And
we had us like being rained on by like donuts and French fries and all these like very like colorful
and beautiful foods that the bloggers and vloggers love. And you know what, friends, during the
pandemic, being a food podcast host, is like sweating underneath a blanket because that's where
you can get the best audio quality. And like having your Internet crash on you multiple times and
just, like, wondering what, why it's come to this.

Patrick Fort [00:01:19] Right. You're sitting under a blanket with a microphone, like I'm sitting on
the floor of my closet. We're not like rookies and making radio, but we've had to really learn entirely
how to do our jobs. Like we've had a lot less time to write and report. And like you said, we already
had months of reporting done for our other season. But, you know, with the pandemic, there's a lot
of changes that are happening across our region that are affecting restaurants and food
businesses. So we thought, why not talk about those things? Why not talk about the changes that
those people are making?

Ruth Tam [00:01:51] Because as hard as it's been for us, the people that we interview and report
on, it's been way harder for them. Like the kind of change that they're dealing with is the kind of
change that you're going to be able to feel the effects of it for potentially generations. At least that's
what people seem to be telling us. This is Dish City. I'm Ruth Tam.

Patrick Fort [00:02:12] And I'm Patrick Fort.

Ruth Tam [00:02:13] On our show, we cover city change through D.C.'s iconic foods. And normally
when we're talking about change, we're talking about migration, gentrification – neighborhood
change that you see over the course of years. And so we set aside our original season two and we
started talking about the ways the pandemic is really severely impacting the food industry and our
food systems right now.

Patrick Fort [00:02:37] Experts are estimating that a huge number of restaurants will not be able
to reopen after the coronavirus lockdowns are lifted. Anywhere from like 20 to 30 percent with
those odds. How are restaurants playing their cards to make sure they can survive?

Ruth Tam [00:02:52] On this episode, we'll hear from two founders of local food businesses about
the choices they made during the most grueling months of their lives. Then we'll hear from two
Washingtonians about how the pandemic has changed the way they personally think about serving
drinks and food.

Ruth Tam [00:03:16] So the first people we're going to hear from are the founders of Compass
Coffee. They're a local coffee roasting company with 12 cafes in the D.C. area and many of their
locations are downtown. So they were really reliant on, you know, the commuter work place
downtown coffee work culture. And that obviously shut down pretty quickly after the pandemic hit
D.C..

Patrick Fort [00:03:40] Yeah. The two founders Michael Haft and Harrison Suarez had to act
pretty quickly. And at the start of it, they actually had to let go like 150 of their 180 employees. And
the next step was to entirely change their business model. They started making hand sanitizer and
trying to sell that to make up for all of the lost business. And now online, you can buy something
called the prepper pack, which is a 5 pound bag of coffee and 2 bottles of hand sanitizer and some
chocolate and vanilla sirup.

Ruth Tam [00:04:12] It's wild to me how, you know, prior to all of this, you'd go into a cafe, you'd
get a coffee to go, or you'd stay for a little while. But now people are going to Compass Coffees
and potentially like stopping at a Compass the way that you would stop at a Costco. You're not just
going for, you know, a one latte to go. You're going and getting a 5 pound bag of coffee and then
like a bunch of other stuff that's on your list. I guess we wanted to know what did it take for
Compass to shift a huge portion of their business to an entirely new product, hand sanitizer?

Michael Haft [00:04:43] We we couldn't source like a proper pump top bottle. Like, pumps are like
gold right now. Like there's literally nowhere that you can buy a pump top. So we have just regular
squeeze bottles and little squeeze bottle caps. And we're like, okay, cool. So it will kind of be like
vanilla syrup. You know, you'll squirt a little bit your hands and you know, that's better than nothing.

Ruth Tam [00:05:07] Can you explain a little bit more about, like, the pump top economy. Like
what? Is it something related to the pandemic that makes this particular thing really hard to get
now?

Michael Haft [00:05:18] This is this is kind of hearsay. But in talking with all of the manufacturers
of caps and bottles, their suppliers are generally in China, the people who are making the raw
materials for pumps, like the little spring inserts or the dip tubes or the threaded pieces that actually
attach to the top of the bottle. So essentially, there's a ripple effect where because things were
shut down in China in December and January and into February, none of those products were
being shipped to the United States. And now there's a shortage. The shortage goes away in a
couple months once their factories reopen and trade resumes. But for the time being, it's kind of
like there's just this missing gap of time where no pumps were made. I mean, we've been going on
eBay. We've been trying to get into the black market of pumps, like trading pumps with people.

Patrick Fort [00:06:18] Who are you trading with?

Michael Haft [00:06:19] Well, I mean, I don't want to give away our sources, but we've been able
to secure 20,000 pumps. So we've got coming out next week 20,000 16 ounce bottles with pumps.

Harrison Suarez [00:06:31] One of the key areas where we think that it's going to be particularly
popular is actually in the coming weeks. Hopefully, as we all start to go back to work and then back
into the office, that are sanitizer is going to be popular with landlords looking to keep their tenancy.
So we've actually already started fueling those calls and prepping for for that.

Ruth Tam [00:06:56] So how did you get these contacts?

Harrison Suarez [00:06:59] I think we were just quick and willing to solve the problem. That's
really one of the things that's been core to Compass Coffee for the past 6 years is find a way. And
so when people started saying, hey, there's this shortage, hey, we need this, hey, we can't find it.
We put our heads together and figured it out.

Michael Haft [00:07:19] So, I mean, Harrison and I are pretty uniquely suited for for dealing with
this kind of environment. Before starting Compass, we were infantry officers in the Marine Corps
and we served together in Afghanistan. And as strange as it sounds, the chaos and uncertainty of
deployment is is very similar to the sort of chaos, uncertainty, the volatile situation that we're in,
where every day is different. Things that you thought were one way have quickly changed. And
we're we're pretty adaptable in these types of situations.

Patrick Fort [00:07:59] I wonder from an emotional and mental perspective how quickly or how
you are able to make the transition from like, okay, we're a coffee company to we're a hand
sanitizer company.

Harrison Suarez [00:08:13] Harrison and I have broken out some of our old Marine Corps training
to have discussions with our leaders about how do you how do you deal with PTSD with people on
your team? I mean, how do you deal with a sick coworker or a sick family member or friend, you
know, casualties on the battlefield? And how can you be resilient and help other people through a
challenging time?

Ruth Tam [00:08:46] In addition to selling something in really high demand right now –hand
sanitizer– I think Compas was able to make this pivot because they already have a few different
streams of income. They've got their cafes. They have online orders, deliveries, and they're even in
grocery stores. So even though they lost most of their in-person café business, there were still
different ways for them to make money.

Patrick Fort [00:09:08] Right. And the things they make don't have a really short shelf life. But
what happens if your restaurant is dine-in only and you do sell something that spoils quickly like
seafood? Jamie Leeds is the founder of Hank's Oyster Bar, among other restaurants. She's a self-
taught chef who came to D.C. as a consultant shortly after 9/11, which was another period of
uncertainty in the restaurant and hospitality industry.

Ruth Tam [00:09:34] Once she moved to D.C., she fell in love the District and saw it as a place
where she could build on her own dream, a neighborhood oyster bar. So now she heads up her
own restaurant group, which has 6 businesses, and most are Hank's Oyster Bar locations.

Patrick Fort [00:09:47] When the pandemic hit, Jamie pivoted. But unlike some other businesses
in D.C., her Hanks locations didn't immediately become grocery stores or start making masks. The
first step Jamie took in her pivot was to shut things down.

Jamie Leeds [00:10:02] We crunched the numbers. We went through the spreadsheets. And, you
know, I realized that I had just enough money to pay my my last payroll, which I wanted to make
sure that that was gonna be able to be done. And so in a matter of hours, I decided to close the
restaurants, to lay off the employees, over 300 employees so most of them could get a jump on
applying for unemployment with really no other plan in mind. We thought, oh, we're just going to
you know, this will be a couple of weeks and then we'll be back. And obviously, that has not been
the case.

Patrick Fort [00:10:39] What was that conversation like?

Jamie Leeds [00:10:42] It took its toll. The processing of it definitely took its toll on me. And I, you
know, really went into a funk and not knowing what to do and not knowing, you know, building this
this company up from from scratch. I was also in the middle of construction on the restaurant that I
own called Henk's Pasta Bar. I was in the middle of rebranding that and renovating it. We're putting
on a roof deck garden and there's a huge multimillion dollar construction project that had to be
stopped, just the loss of a lot of future plans. And, you know, having to deal with the unknown of,
you know, where's my livelihood going to come from now? And the livelihood of so many of us. It's
a very scary time.

Ruth Tam [00:11:38] One of the things that made it easier for you to be decisive during this time
was that you are the sole owner and you know, this is your company. But in some ways, I'm
wondering if that makes the fallout from all of this really hard to deal with. How did you internalize
the responsibility?
Jamie Leeds [00:11:55] Yeah, it's a double edged sword. So on one hand, it's really nice to be
able to have the freedom to make your own decisions and pivot easily and not be restricted. On the
other hand, I carry the burden. I love to provide. You know, that's one of the reasons why I love
being in this business. I love to make people happy. I'm not able to do that anymore. And I don't
know if I will be able to do that with, you know, how things are gonna go. And I started reading
actually, a friend of mine sent me an article about the supply chains and the seafood, the
fishermen, how they're losing all their product and everything. And I was like, we've got to do
something. I have a very good relationship with my main oyster vendor Warshore Shaw Oyster
Company. They actually started their company sitting at Hank's on the back of a napkin. So I called
Brad, the owner of the company, and I said, you know, what can we do to help get some seafood
going? You know, maybe I can make some sauces. We could pair some seafood. And he was like,
yes, let's do it. Like in a day, we put this company together called Current Catch, and we sell these
seafood boxes of fresh seafood, which he gets, and then I make sauces to go with them. We're in
our third week now. We've been doing pretty well. Delivery systems that you can order online.

Ruth Tam [00:13:17] So you launched Current Catch three weeks ago. And if I'm correct, Hank's
Oyster Bar also just reopened May 13th for contactless delivery and pickup.

Jamie Leeds [00:13:28] Right.

Ruth Tam [00:13:28] So why reopen now, the restaurant part of things.

Jamie Leeds [00:13:33] The thinking behind it is that takeout and delivery is going to be the
majority of the sales going forward for a while. So my thought was, you know, let's get started with
the process because we didn't really do a lot of takeout and we didn't do delivery at all. So it's a
learning curve for us. So I wanted to be able to kind of get a little jump start on it before we actually
are able to open open so that we can fine tune the menus and figure out what's selling. And, you
know, we've worked on safety protocol, we've worked on sanitation. We've got the restaurant
cleaned up properly. And also people are, you know, needing to work. So the first part was if you
feel safe to come to work, yes. If you need to come to work, yes. So let's do it.

Patrick Fort [00:14:35] What do you think will be the biggest ramifications for D.C.'s restaurant
industry coming out of this?

Jamie Leeds [00:14:42] I think that I'm definitely looking at streamlining my business model,
streamlining operations. I think, you know, things like positions like middle management positions,
like directors of operations and beverage directors and, you know, things those kinds of positions
are going to be not as needed as much or used as much. For D.C., I mean, we're already starting
to see people closing and not reopening, and it's going to be really sad.

Patrick Fort [00:15:27] I'm wondering something. And it's if this is just the nature of the restaurant
industry where, like, business owners have to like, come up with something so quickly. And go out
into like do these like crazy pivots like start a new company or make hand sanitizer, like do
something like totally out of left field. I guess what I'm saying is that it's like, is there a way for
restaurants to exist where they like don't have to do this. Where they can just like press pause and
like people can like take a pay cut for a little bit or something. Does that make sense?

Jamie Leeds [00:16:02] Yeah. Yeah. I hear what you're saying. And believe me, I wish that I could
do that because that would be ideal. Unfortunately, people can't wait that long to make a living. It's
gonna be a while. So, you know, drastic measures have to be taken. I mean, people in the
restaurant business are very resilient. You know, they're used to working their asses off in terrible
conditions. And it's like, you know, masochistic kind of lifestyle. So, we're kind of culturally I feel
like we'll be able to get through this. But going back to normal, I don't know that that will ever be
that way.
Ruth Tam [00:16:55] It sounds like Jamie is feeling this sort of emotional whiplash. Like, there's
real emotional costs to pivoting this fast and under these horrible circumstances. And then there's
the financial cost. Before all of this, Jamie had a lot of things going for her. She was expanding her
restaurant group. But with all of that success, there was really only enough money left over for one
more round of payroll. It just goes to show how tough the restaurant business is. You kind of
expect restaurant groups like hers to have a little bit more leeway, like a bit of a buffer. But it
doesn't sound like there was much of a cushion.

Patrick Fort [00:17:31] And even though Jamie's started a new company and opened up one of
her Hanks locations, it seems like her current business model is just a test for how she's going to
operate in the future. Maybe she'll have to close a location or employ fewer people. It's not really
clear if these changes will pay off.

Ruth Tam [00:17:49] So far, we've focused on business owners. But of course, for every big
business pivot happening on the founder's side, there are all these individual and personal effects
that trickle down to employees who have been furloughed or laid off. And that's leading to pivots
that are more personal. So we talked to a bartender who's thinking about leaving the industry for
good. Plus, what kinds of food pivots are happening on a community level? We talked to one
community leader who's had to change his mosque's entire approach to iftars during Ramadan.
That's after the break.

Patrick Fort [00:18:24] Dish City would not be possible without the support of our listeners. We're
part of WAMU. And it's been a huge effort to move our show production home. If you want to keep
us going during the pandemic, and after, you can become a member at WAMU.org/donate or by
clicking the link in the show notes. Thanks.

Patrick Fort [00:18:46] As of late April, hundreds of thousands of people in the region have lost
their hospitality jobs, Brook Stonebanks is one of them. Brooke had made a career in the industry
working as a bartender and as a caterer, and she had big plans in 2020. She was going to start her
own events planning business. But then there was this whole pandemic thing that slowed that plan
down. Now she finds herself in the tough position of considering what type of restaurant job she
would go back to, if she wants to, and if she even can.

Brooke Stonebanks [00:19:17] I'm actually working on potentially starting my own events and
catering company and a bar and restaurant consulting company. And I was partnering with a friend
to do this, hoping to launch it, kind of go full forward, like in the fall and then I'll launch it next year.
But whatever happens with unemployment or with all the COVID and I mean, I'm trying to still save
up to hopefully learn, but right now, since I have to pay for rent and focus on my son, I can't really
even think about even, fathom paying for a school or a class or try to get a degree, a business
degree or something.

Patrick Fort [00:20:04] Yeah, tell us more about the work you were doing before. It sounds like
you had had a lot of irons in the fire.

Brooke Stonebanks [00:20:11] I was bartending over at Eighteenth Street Lounge, which is great,
but I was also bartending at Crown & Crow, which is owned by Brian Harrison. I had retired from
bartending for a year before the Crown & Crow had opened. And I came back because I just
miss...I'm a big people person. Having a kid when I was bartending behind the bar, that was my
social life, basically, like it was like going out and hanging out with my friends. It's also it's nice too
because when people open up to you, it's self-help too for yourself to kind of think and evaluate
your life. So now, that's all taken away, you know?

Ruth Tam [00:20:54] So you're saying because it was such a popular and kind of bustling place to
work, that you felt no worries about starting your own business and like you felt like you could do
this for a long time?
Brooke Stonebanks [00:21:11] Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I had spent one year outside of
the industry and I came back to it because it definitely is something that I, oh what's the term... I
kind of put my money, when you need your poker. I put all my cards in. I had no doubt that I would
be fine and I would be happy. And it was definitely... I wasn't worried at all. And now who knows? I
mean, I don't even know. Like, what's most confusing is I don't even know where to go to next.

Patrick Fort [00:21:55] What do you mean?

Brooke Stonebanks [00:21:58] What kind of job or industry or...I just don't even know what I
would enjoy as much. Like, what I would have as much passion and happiness right now or just in
general.

Ruth Tam [00:22:16] You put this question out to the District Industry Facebook group and you're
like, look, I gotta change something. I need to figure out what else to go into next. What's my next
move? And I'm wondering if you could kind of talk us through what other people have suggested.

Brooke Stonebanks [00:22:31] I think the quickest option, people would say, like, you know, Uber
Eats and being driver. Which I don't have a car, bleh. But Uber Eats and coding or IT... What I've
kind of set my mind to is I think I might...I'm considering interior design.

Ruth Tam [00:22:56] What kind of timeline are you thinking about right now? I mean, do you feel
like you have a deadline personally for figuring out something?

Brooke Stonebanks [00:23:04] If I do start doing the delivery options and maybe I'll look into
some classes by winter time, I guess. It's kind of, I'm literally living day by day right now. When you
start thinking of the future, your anxiety gets so bad and like I said before, even when I would love
to get back into the restaurant industry, but it's not going to be the same for a long time.

Patrick Fort [00:23:43] I wonder, too, how hard it is to be thinking about leaving a field that you
feel so passionately about.

Brooke Stonebanks [00:23:55] Oh, that just...it breaks my heart. That question alone just kind of
made me tear up a little bit. It's gonna hurt. I'm just going to hopefully try to stay as positive as I
can. I mean, you have to always prepare for the worst. But I'm just gonna really hope that it won't
come permanently to that case.

Ruth Tam [00:24:31] Brooke's not just mourning the loss of a job, her social life was wrapped up in
the industry, too. So for Brooke and other workers like her, it's really a double whammy. But unlike
business owners, she can't just change her job to make sure that she can stay in the industry that
she loves. So for her, pivoting now actually means figuring out the best way to leave the industry.

Patrick Fort [00:24:51] Right. Like, I identify with what she's saying. Like, one of the ways I
connect with people is over food and drinks out. But that's been entirely lost since we've been
stuck at home. The closest I get is online interactions and all of that happens through a screen.
That being said, I can't imagine what it's like to have your income cut off, but to also end up losing
your social life as a side effect of that.

Ruth Tam [00:25:16] I think we're all grieving this loss in different ways. We're missing the places
where we usually gather. One thing I've been thinking about is how the pandemic has overlapped
with Ramadan. For Muslims fasting, getting together to eat for iftar after sunset is a big part of the
holy month, but now it's a lot less communal. We talked to Saif Rahman, who's the director of
public and government affairs at Dar Al-Hijra, a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia. For Ramadan
this year. They were expecting to continue their annual programs of feeding and providing prayer
services for up to 800 people. That all changed when the pandemic shut down public gatherings,
weeks before Ramadan began.
Saif Rahman [00:25:52] Historically and typically, we would have the community gather at the
mosque for the breaking of fast, which is iftar, and it happens at sunset. And we would essentially
make, on average, anywhere between 600 to 700 meals nightly where people are gathering to
break fast together as a community. So we've had to make a huge pivot, obviously, because you
can't have that many people gathering at the mosque. We've decided that we wanted to be
available for our community and make things easy for those that don't have access to food. By just
opening up a daily iftar drive through. And this is not just for our communities and for the larger
community. We're distributing now I think we're up to 730 meals every night. So the a menu
changes daily. Recently we had a dish that comes out of the Levant called musakhan, which is
grilled chicken over a bed of onions and pine nuts and some muck over a piece of bread that has
olive oil on it, for example. And there is no necessarily a quote-unquote, Muslim menu. The food is
eclectic. It comes from all around the world. And we try to make sure that we are accommodating
all types of backgrounds and dishes.

Ruth Tam [00:27:14] When you all decided, OK, we're gonna have to change how we handle our
programs for Ramadan this year, did people understand the position everyone was in...were
people disappointed?

Saif Rahman [00:27:27] So there was pushback because, you know, Ramadan is considered the
most sacred month in the Islamic calendar, particularly in terms of prayers and congregating. If you
were looking at the Christian tradition, for example, you're telling people that we're not coming
together for Christmas this year because we just can't or in our American tradition, you know, we're
saying Thanksgiving dinner is off now. So it's really difficult in the sense that the end of Ramadan,
if we're not able to figure out a way to have people, you know, safely congregate, listen to a
sermon, then I see that as affecting people a lot. My daughter's already asking me. I have a five-
year-old daughter is already asking me, Baba, are we gonna have Eid this year? And we're trying
to figure out how to safely do that.

Patrick Fort [00:28:19] I'm wondering how the pandemic has changed your view or relationship
with your community during Ramadan?

Saif Rahman [00:28:27] Our community is probably one of the more diverse ones, and that's
what's made it so difficult. Our community spans literally the "fresh off the boat" to second, third
generation American Muslims. And then it also spans socioeconomic status just from people who
are in very difficult financial situations to quite successful doctors and business owners that are
doing pretty well. So we've had to figure out how we can continue to service all of those segments
of the community. And that's what's made it so difficult for us, because when you do it physically at
the mosque, you could make speakers available to essentially be able to handle the different
languages that different cultures of different backgrounds. But when you do it online, we've had to
try to navigate between how do we make sure that the programing is relevant and how do we still
reach those people who maybe don't have internet access or maybe don't have the laptops or the
phones or the network service? Be able to get online and see the programing. So that's been the
real challenge for us in terms of trying to figure out how we service our community and how we
stay connected together.

Ruth Tam [00:29:42] I'm wondering if you could tell us more about how food is more than just a
physical thing for you during this month. And, what role these meals have in terms of spiritual,
community life.

Saif Rahman [00:29:55] During the rest of the year, you know, you're hungry, you're thirsty. You
know, I play tennis and I bike, you know. Okay, you take a drink and you're good. But during
Ramadan, you realize that that blessing isn't there. And that's where food at the end of the day
starts to take on that meaning, because now you are thankful for the blessings that you never
realize you always had. To juxtapose that with what's happening with the COVID issue, we are in a
situation where, you know, suddenly our life can be upended. Things that we took for granted, you
know, going to school, meeting our parents and grandparents and family gatherings, our world and
the bounties that we live in. We sometimes take for granted. And I think it's a wakeup call for us –
what has happened with this pandemic.

Patrick Fort [00:30:44] I love what Saif is saying. The lessons of Ramadan don't just apply to
Muslims who observe this month of fasting. They can pretty easily be applied to anyone living
through this pandemic.

Ruth Tam [00:30:53] Right now, there are a lot of silver linings and lessons to be learned from all
the ways restaurants, people and food providers have pivoted during this pandemic. Some might
be more obvious – trying to pivot, to take out and offering new delivery options.

Patrick Fort [00:31:06] And others might be less so. Like figuring out how to provide spiritual and
physical nourishment for hundreds of Muslims from different backgrounds.

Ruth Tam [00:31:16] Our attempts to adjust during this pandemic...How much of it is scrambling
for survival? And how much of it is sound business strategy? We might not know the payoffs for
months or even years.

Patrick Fort [00:31:27] If you get there before us, let us know. We'll be listening.

Ruth Tam [00:31:37] Our next episode is going to take us a little longer to report. So we'll be back
on your feet in three weeks. We miss you already.

Patrick Fort [00:31:44] Dish City is produced by me, Patrick Fort.

Ruth Tam [00:31:47] And me. Ruth Tam. Our associate producer is Julia Karron and our editor is
Poncie Rutsch.

Patrick Fort [00:31:53] Our theme music is by Daniel Peterschmidt. WAMU's General Manager is
J.J. Yore and Andy McDaniel oversees all the content we make here.

Ruth Tam [00:32:01] Catch us online on Twitter and Instagram, @DishCity. And our email is
DishCity@WAMU.org.

Patrick Fort [00:32:08] If you love Dish City, tell a friend and review us in your podcast app. It'll
help listeners like you find our show. Thanks for listening.

Ruth Tam [00:32:16] Bye!