‘Hibernating’ Harlem Places to eat Feed Workers Throughout Closure

HARLEM, NY — A pair of Harlem dining establishments that shut quickly just after the city’s latest round of eating limitations have been transformed into makeshift food pantries to feed the neighborhood’s restaurant personnel.

© Courtesy of Cathy Nonas
The team held its initially distribution Friday at Lido, where by 22 cafe staff and their people bought a few bags each individual of clean groceries.

Italian eatery Lido and pan-Asian cafe Bixi, the two owned by Susannah Koteen, closed their doors in late December and early January, searching for to wait around out a pandemic wintertime that got even bleaker next the shutdown of indoor eating.

Even though they are only “hibernating,” the closures meant that about 50 workers concerning the two places to eat had been instantly out of perform.

“I truly feel horrible,” Koteen explained. “Some of my folks aren’t equipped to get unemployment positive aspects, so they are just dwelling not generating income.”

Koteen received in touch with the nonprofit Meals For Very good, whose CEO, Cathy Nonas, attained out to Indivisible Harlem. The trio began to elevate funds to obtain groceries for the freshly unemployed staff.

Immediately after putting the phrase out to other shuttered dining establishments along Frederick Douglass Boulevard, the group held its to start with distribution Friday at Lido, in which 22 cafe employees and their families got three bags every of refreshing groceries, filled with eggs, milk, canola oil, develop, canned foods and other necessities they experienced questioned for.

The group is setting up to maintain the distributions at least at the time a month until eventually indoor dining resumes.

“We program, as a neighborhood, as that proverbial village, to continue to services this community as the want grows,” Nonas wrote in an electronic mail.

To donate to the exertion, stop by mealsforgood.org/consider-motion.