From the first days of Gov. Ralph Northam’s stay-at-home orders in mid-March, we’ve written a host of articles on how the local restaurant industry is coping with the pandemic. Many of these articles have included the word “pivot” somewhere in the text, as the industry has scrambled to set up online ordering systems, develop cocktails to go, create new outdoor dining spaces and figure out how to serve diners indoors while complying with new safety requirements.
While many businesses are struggling right now, for restaurants, which are built to serve the maximum number of customers in close quarters, it’s been especially tough. A number of local restaurants have closed, and more are likely to follow — the Independent Restaurant Coalition projects that 85% of independent restaurants could close due to COVID-19’s effects on businesses. OpenTable CEO Steve Hafner is more optimistic, predicting that number to be closer to 25%, but it’s still bleak.
Food Editor Eileen Mellon and I had been talking about a feature on the restaurant business for more than a year, and with the industry on such precarious footing, we thought it was a good time to pull the curtain back and educate readers on the many costs associated with running a restaurant, which now includes paying for personal protective equipment.
We are indebted to Brittanny Anderson, chef and co-owner of Brenner Pass and Metzger Bar & Butchery, who agreed to open Brenner’s books and talk candidly about the daily struggle to make ends meet. I learned a lot from “The Dollars of Dining” (Page 78), and I hope you do, too. I also hope the region’s restaurants can beat the odds and make it through to the other side.
In this issue (Page 66) we also look back at the first heart transplant at the Medical College of Virginia in 1968, a medical milestone that was marred by the disregard shown to the donor, a Black man who was unnamed at that time. Local author Chip Jones has written a book about the transplant, “The Organ Thieves: The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South,” with the story of the donor, Bruce Tucker, at the center of the tale at last.
Speaking of books, in this issue we also share with you an excerpt (Page 72) from “The Sweet Scent of Death,” by Lesley St. James, winner of James River Writers’ and Richmond magazine’s eighth Best Unpublished Novel contest. One upside of the pandemic is that I have had more time for pleasure reading. I hope you’ll enjoy a brief escape with a scene from this entertaining mystery novel.