How COVID closed The Kitchen (for EAT OUT)

When I closed my shop a week before the National Lockdown I had no idea how the consequences of the pandemic would play out, the unfolding devastation… But my immediate instinct was to plant out seedlings. Level 5 had the calm of shock and helplessness.  There was not much we could know or do.  

But there has never been real rest for me in this time.  All my 14 staff are breadwinners.  I know that without an income, some would be desperate and even hungry.  The immense kindness of our community of customers and of collaboration with restaurant friends has brought donations to keep some money coming through for our Kitchen team.  UIF TERS have made payments for two months thus far.  This is a blessing but not enough to keep landlords at bay in neighbourhoods that are becoming increasingly fearful and desperate.

I did not take the decision to close my restaurant lightly.

I ran through the possibilities.  We were caterers, couldn’t we do deliveries?  We tried this for a week and it became clear that for us, dependent as we were on feeding 100 – 150 people a day, we would never be able to cover costs with the orders (deliveries from Higgovale to Kirstenhof) we could manage.  With most of our market gone, takeaways too, would be to costly to do, again, our market unfathomable, our overheads too high, and everywhere the looming threat of contagion.

The bills for monthly expenses did not stop.  The rent bill, even with a 25% discount left us with an insurmountable debt, especially as the months dragged on. That bill alone made me realise that we would not be able to recover in a completely changed market.  I knew well how tight the margins had become: the rising costs of the last two years; the struggle to tighten our cost of goods and to shrink our expenses. Did I have a cushion to keep us going?  No. There was no cushion to keep us for an indeterminate number of months.  We needed our queues at lunchtime because we needed to sell a lot of Love Sandwiches and Salads and do a few catered lunch events a day just to cover our costs! 

With the announcement of the closure of my shop and handing in my notice to my landlord, the triage of termination began: trying to end contracts and secure payment holidays on insurance premiums. Telkom’s inbox, too full, could not receive my cancellation document and settlement. Do I keep my van or sell it? I began the urgent work of selling my assets: fridges and stainless-steel tables, my vintage shop fittings, pictures, and chairs– all to try and cover expenses. There was talk of help from various institutions but already facing debt, help in terms of loans were that last thing I needed!

It became clear by May that without a vaccine, restaurants like ours, dependent on volume and bustle, would not be able to operate as before.  We were a Level 0 business!  Ours was a destination restaurant.  In one sweep of disaster we lost most of our trade: no more visitors from abroad.  No more local travellers. No more production company lunches to cater.  And all the surrounding businesses much reduced in number and many customers now working from home indefinitely.  

Food from a restaurant does not come out of a vacuum.  It comes from a team of people (prep staff, cooks, cleaners, cashiers) who come from Khayelitsha, Delft, Mitchells Plain and Atlantis.  The cost to their safety is enormous. We love to cook!  And we love to serve.  But we must be confident that we can pay staff.  It also costs money to stock a cold room and bring in produce. 

As South Africans, we are tremendously resilient.  We are resourceful.  We know how to work! We are tenacious.  We believe that everything will be alright in the end so long as we apply ourselves, our labour being our virtue.

But now is a time for cleverness, collaboration, conversation, a collation of learnings and most of all – imagination!  

As restauranteurs we ask: do we really need to offer so much choice? Can we be more considered with our choice of producers and farmers? How can we price our food better? We want better wages and more security for our staff.  This needs to be costed into our prices along with packaging and good olive oil etc.  We need to grow staff who are skilled and versatile so that our businesses are agile.   We cannot be dependent on having full restaurants every day and night.  

What we have seen is that restaurants have communities around them.  They also employ many thousands of workers.  Working in a kitchen requires a particular kind of tenacity and work ethic, one that chefs, line cooks and cleaners understand as a brigade, a family.  Restaurants are harbours of culture, where we celebrate the joys of true hospitality – the pleasure of sharing something delicious at a table with laughter and conversation. These are institutions that need support – in the form of technology, industry knowledge and business.  Food is at the forefront of how we will find solutions that might be kinder and better for all.  How does everyone get to eat?  We have the choice, in Arundhati Roy’s now famous quote: “to break with the past and imagine our world anew”. 

I have to say that I want a world in which I can feed many people with food that is delicious and nourishing and good.