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During breaks from exhausting shifts, health care workers at Regional Medical Center in San Jose have been enjoying tamarind prawns. At Stanford Hospital, a Cobb salad with carrot-ginger soup. And at John Muir urgent care in Walnut Creek, chicken cacciatore.
Throughout the Bay Area, restaurants are sending free meals by the thousands to those on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis. While designed to thank and fuel the first responders, these initiatives have another benefit — they keep kitchen staffers employed during a time when many restaurants have had to shut their doors.
On the Peninsula, organic restaurant pioneer Jesse Ziff Cool said a light bulb went off when Stanford University bioethicist and associate professor Holly Tabor asked her if there was a way for Cool’s restaurants — Flea Street Cafe and the Cantor Cool Cafe — to rev up again and help with meals.
“I realized I could bring back staff, we could buy local, organic ingredients from our vendors who are struggling, and we could send beautiful food to these front-line people who are taking care of us,” Cool said.
The pair created a nonprofit called Meals of Gratitude that’s now delivering 200 meals every weekday to Stanford Hospital units, thanks to tax-deductible donations from the public.
Two staffers, Liliana Valencia and Erika Morales, oversee the operation that swings into action at 6 a.m. at Flea Street’s Menlo Park kitchen with ingredients from California’s Marin Sun, Coke and Dirty Girl farms, Harley Farms Dairy and McFarland Springs Trout Farm. The meals are loaded for delivery at noon, and by 1 p.m. the restaurant pivots into a takeout operation for the regular customers that Cool has cultivated over 40 years.
In the South Bay, Helen Nguyen, owner of two Pho Ha Noi eateries, has transitioned her Cupertino team to make and deliver hundreds of Vietnamese dishes — including a tofu one for vegans — to Kaiser Santa Clara, El Camino Hospital in Mountain View and O’Connor Hospital, Valley Health Center and Regional, all in San Jose.
Their comfort mission operates four days a week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; on Wednesday the restaurant closes for a deep-cleaning.
“We planned on donating 1,000 meals in total,” Nguyen said. “However, our friends and family donated to the cause, and our landlord reduced our rent, which allows us to donate 2,000 meals and maybe even 3,000 in the future.”
Restaurateur Joe Stein, like Cool, has longevity on his side. His Sunrise Bistro & Catering in Walnut Creek, in business for 39 years, has a loyal following. Still, he launched a GoFundMe effort titled “Feed first responders & keep Sunrise Bistro open” and has raised more than $50,000 to make breakfasts and lunches for the Highland and Kaiser hospitals in Oakland, John Muir Urgent Care in Concord and Walnut Creek and AMR ambulance response of Contra Costa County.
He and head chef Ty Pearce have plenty of experience with big orders. “This is exactly what we do,” Stein said. “We drop off meals for 10 people up to 550 atop Mount Diablo” for an annual fundraiser.
The initiative has allowed him to bring about 50 of his 70 employees back at least part time — “everyone who wants to work can work,” he says — with hopes of many going full time soon.
Other efforts are ramping up nationally and locally. Humanitarian chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen, which most recently fed tourists quarantined on the Grand Princess cruise ship in Oakland, has teamed up with chefs in several major cities. An increasing number of restaurants — including Spin-A-Yarn in Fremont; Centonove and Double D’s in Los Gatos; Asian Box, Lulu’s and Kirk’s in Palo Alto; and various locations of Mixt, Smashburger and Starbird — are taking donations for hospital meals.
Even food trucks are getting in on the action. Moveable Feast, a San Jose-based food events organizer, is launching what it calls a Feed the Frontline effort.
“It’s truly powerful to see how the community has rallied around this idea,” said Ryan Sebastian of Moveable Feast. For their first outing, Treatbot ice cream truck will hand out prepacked pints to Regional Medical Center staffers.
Medical personnel have emailed and tweeted notes of appreciation on behalf of their staffs.
“Your support encourages our continued commitment and dedication, and provides strength to keep going so we can protect our patients, staff and community,” wrote Dr. Meenesh A. Bhimani of O’Connor Hospital to the Pho Ha Noi restaurant.
That sort of response means a lot to Nguyen, for whom this restaurant-to-hospital crusade is highly personal. It’s not just about thanking the Bay Area’s health care providers for going above and beyond during this coronavirus crisis, she says, but also about paying them back for their response years ago when her infant daughter was diagnosed with cancer.
“I owe American doctors and nurses for saving my daughter’s life when she was 10 months old,” she said, noting that Alicia is now a healthy 14-year-old. “This is a good way to do it.”
