We're a foodie family. Instead of sports, we watch Top Chef. Instead of theme parks, our vacations revolve around tapas and tacos. As the world coped with the pandemic we started a family discussion about its impact on the restaurant industry. This ignited our kids' desire to do something about it, which turned into a modest community program we named Kensington Eats.
It was a simple concept proposed by my wife Margaret - to crowdsource orders to local restaurants while volunteering promotional and logistical support. With a website haphazardly managed by our son Cole and a logo and blog created by our daughter Audrey, we offered families the luxury of a restaurant meal with the convenience of delivery or pickup closer to home in the middle of a busy week. Most importantly, Kensington Eats provided a little relief for restaurants trying to survive during the heart of the pandemic.
Two years in, why stop now? Well, Kensington Eats was most popular when times were darkest, when restaurants were closing everywhere and when families were going stir crazy locked down in their homes. From the beginning, we knew that eventually, we'd retire Kensington Eats and when that bittersweet decision came, it would be a positive development because it meant that things were looking up. After feeding 500 families and generating $35,000 in revenue for the local economy, specifically family-owned restaurants, our family held the last Kensington Eats event on June 9, 2022.
What began as a “what if” idea over a family dinner to help others and help the food community we loved, paid back in ways we didn’t anticipate - we made new friends, bonded as a community, had great meals, and learned A LOT. Through this adventure, here are the lessons we've learned:
Putting Food on the Table Requires Trust and Hustle!
Communicating with busy restaurant owners was sometimes challenging and we had to be very direct about how we sold our program and the value it would create. And yet despite giving as much notice as possible, restaurants were often understaffed, behind schedule, and had to hustle to fulfill our large orders, sometimes annoying regular customers picking up or ordering at the same time.
A typical take-out order easily fits in a car’s passenger seat, however, take-out orders for 30 families really pushed the limits of our SUV's storage capacity, especially since both kids were required to tag along to help load and deliver. Also, navigating the winding, hilly roads of our neighborhood really made us appreciate quality take-out packaging as well as develop a serious animosity towards leaky Styrofoam containers.
Timing is everything and promising a specific delivery window time caused an immense amount of stress. In the beginning, we were constantly running late, but luckily our masks hid the expressions of panic and exhaustion on our faces. It took practice, but we got the hang of it by pre-mapping destinations, and finding the optimal delivery routes beforehand became an absolute lifesaver.
So in this post-pandemic era, if your food is taking a little more time than expected, exercise some empathy before giving in to impatience.
The Restaurant Business is Ruthless
As we inch towards normalcy in 2022, several trends born out of the shutdown, such as reduced party size and more take-out (meaning less alcohol revenue), appear to be here to stay. Combined with rising costs, labor shortages, and unpredictable variants, recovery is slow and those who rely on the restaurant industry for their livelihood will continue to face economic hardships.
Under normal circumstances, restaurants face daunting changes which are why MOST fail. A global pandemic makes those odds infinitely worse. According to the National Restaurant Association, 1 in 10 restaurants in the U.S. has closed permanently due to Covid with that number expected to grow as some continue to operate but ultimately fail to reach profitability.
Several local and national charities make it their mission to help such as One Fair Wage, Children of Restaurant Employees, and James Beard's Open for Good Foundation. Consider making a donation.
Technology + Innovation = A Healthier Restaurant Economy
We noticed that restaurants that embraced technology and had an agile operation could more easily work with a program like Kensington Eats.
There are plenty of services like Doordash, and UberEats which we've all enjoyed that immediately connect kitchens to appetites while also creating opportunities for gig workers. For the type of scale that Kensington Eats worked with companies like Zerocater and MobyDish make it easy to cater large events - a necessity as businesses attempt to lure employees back to the office.
Helpful systems and tools like Toast, ChowNow, or Upserve have been around for years, but the pandemic really forced EVERY restaurant to consider and adopt the technologies that would allow them to compete in a post-pandemic world.
So to the food lovers out there who are also technologists and entrepreneurs - keep innovating!
Food is More Than a Meal
Conversations, prayers, stories, laughter, arguments, and bonds old & new…it all happens around meals. These are priceless moments of connection that we realized through the isolation of the pandemic we could not live without. Food is a bright spot in the polarized, stressful world we live in and, like music or art, there have never been fewer barriers to access and that means sharing a culinary adventure, learning about different cultures, or experiencing new things with the people you love has never been easier.
As for my family, Kensington Eats was an amazing learning experience through these challenging years which we gratefully leave behind us, and we know that food will continue to provide us with teaching moments for the rest of our lives.
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