Sandra’s Delivers; Ahava Keeps Truckin’

How restaurant owners are adjusting to the COVID-19 sit-down shutdown.

Vegan Ahava owner Poreyah Benton is in the latter category. As a food truck chef, she does not have a sit-in restaurant to close down. She plans to decide at the end of the week whether it makes sense for her to stay open.

“I don’t know if it’s going to affect me. I don’t know if people will be scared to come out. I hope not,” Benton said.

Benton limited her hours to noon to 3 p.m. on Tuesday and simplified her menu as she watches the effects of recent closures. She is also offering free meals to up to two children per family.

Benton parks her truck across from Yale’s Old Campus. The gates to the freshman dorms were closed in keeping with Yale’s decision on Saturday to move all of its classes online for the rest of the spring semester.

Benton said that she had a busy week last week despite Yale’s efforts to move students off campus. She has plenty of non-student customers, she explained.

Benton is not worried yet about her own health. Her mother has urged her to stop taking cash. Benton is not sure whether she will do that yet, since some customers do not have credit cards.

“In general, I don’t get sick,” she said. ​“It’s very rare.”

Loyal Customers

Davis has eaten at Vegan Ahava multiple times a week since it first opened in December, he said. Davis maintains a plant-based diet for health reasons, and he said that there is nothing on the menu he does not like. Benton’s soul food special the ​“Jackson Five” is his favorite.

“I know she’s very clean, even before this outbreak happened. Vegan Ahava is one of the few restaurants I trust. I’m just glad she’s not closed, even if it’s for more limited hours,” Davis said.

Plus, he likes to support black-owned businesses, he said.

Davis works at a hospital and as a juvenile detention officer for the state. Neither of his workplaces can close, so they are taking other precautions, he said.

As Davis tasted Benton’s vegetable soup (pictured above), a line started to form behind him. Davis recognized and started chatting with another loyal customer, Ty Sullivan. Sullivan calls himself a part-time vegan, because he orders vegan food from restaurants but does not know how to make vegan food at home yet.

Benton opened partially for customers like Sullivan, because there are fewer options for vegans during the pandemic than for other kinds of eaters. Across the street, the vegetarian Claire’s Corner Copia had already closed, along with other brick-and-mortar restaurants

Fourth in line, Jasmine Lyle came to Elm and College to support Benton’s effort to distribute free meals to children. Lyle is new to both Vegan Ahava and vegan food in general. She had heard about Benton’s food truck from a friend and tried the Jackson Five on Friday.

“This is really good. I always thought it would be gamey-tasting, but it’s not,” she said, as she tried a bit of tofu for the first time (pictured).

Lyle works at Albertus Magnus, which is still partially open. She said she worked from home with her 4 year-old son on Monday and that he got stir-crazy within a few hours.

“Getting used to that is going to be a transition,” she said.

Closures Next Door

Jocelyn Square’s Next Door usually serves pizza, small bites and beer. The focus is on fresh food from local farmers that you can eat with your hands.

Before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus started, Next Door had just started to deliver larger orders, like 10 or more pizzas to a Yale event. The restaurant has found small deliveries to not be worth the cost, with the need to buy new containers, adapt the menu and insure the employees doing the delivery.

So Next Door has not pivoted to deliveries after being ordered to shut its doors.

“It didn’t make sense to spend all that extra money when it probably wouldn’t sustain us,” Bodak said.

However, Bodak is worried about the restaurant’s staff. The restaurant plans to distribute any food supplies that could go bad to employees on Wednesday. They are temporarily laid off and will have to rely on unemployment benefits.

For some, being unemployed helps with the childcare crisis left by school and preschool closures, Bodak said. She said that her own son is earning his own income at this point, so childcare is not a concern for her.

“My biggest family is my employees. It’s almost harder in a way, because they don’t live with you. We went from seeing each other a minimum of 10 hours a day to not seeing each other at all,” Bodak said.

Co-owner Doug Coffin is staying at home, because he is older and in the age bracket more at risk of dying from COVID-19.

“I worry about the employees. I worry about their families. You don’t have a lot of control right now [in the restaurant industry],” Bodak said.

The local, state and federal governments can help restaurants like hers, Bodak said. Immediate relief from sales, use or payroll taxes, or a grace period for rent on the restaurant space, would be more useful than a loan, she said.

“Loans are probably not the best idea, since restaurant margins are incredibly small. I don’t think anyone’s really aware of that,” she said.

Bodak has already seen her community swing into action on the restaurant’s behalf. Supporters have purchased gift cards to use when the outbreak clears up, and Bodak is considering selling the store’s t‑shirts online as another stopgap measure.

“I realize how many people are affected by us closing and it’s really sad,” she said. ​“I just hope that we can sort of quell the virus a bit by isolating and that we can all come back. I look forward to that time.”

Wash Your Hands and Order Takeout

Customers of Hill institution Sandra’s Next Generation can now order barbecue chicken and collard greens via the Toast Takeout app or by calling the store.

“Nobody has to come inside the restaurant. They will be notified through text when their order is ready,” said Sandra’s manager and co-owner Miguel Pittman.

Pittman spoke calmly about the spread of the novel coronavirus. He said that the African-American community has not been affected yet in New Haven, so they are not talking about the pandemic much.

Sandra’s has withstood other tough times in its 32 years of operation, including financial crises in 1992 and 2007, Pittman said. He said that the restaurant has set aside reserves in case of tragedies.

“We are financially okay to withstand this particular storm even if it takes two to three months. Unfortunately, you have other businesses that can’t say that. My heart goes out to those individuals,” he said.

Pittman said that the only employees affected so far are the servers who take sit-down orders. No one else’s hours have changed, and he said that all employees have family members who can watch their children.

Miguel and Sandra Pittman are providing childcare for their own daughter, who works in the New Haven Fire Department. The fire department is part of the team of first responders handling potential coronavirus cases.

Pittman encouraged the community to quarantine themselves and call their doctor or hospital if they have the symptoms of COVID-19, which include a dry cough, fever and difficulty breathing.

“Don’t go out into the public beyond that and spread the virus if you have it. Think about your neighbors and your family and loved ones,” Pittman said.

Ninth Square Market Caribbean Style closed for a deep cleaning on Friday and is now open for takeout. Like Sandra’s, Caribbean Style encouraged customers to order ahead of time to avoid creating a line within the store.

The vegan restaurant handles deliveries through Uber Eats and Grubhub. Caribbean Style manager and co-owner Elisha Hazel said that they may start delivering themselves as well, though one of their existing employees who handles catering deliveries.

Caribbean Style is serving its usual menu, albeit in smaller quantities. Sales have been down, likely because customers are stockpiling groceries and staying home, Hazel said.

Hazel does intend to add more herbal teas to the menu, including sour sop leaf and sorrell or hibiscus ginger tea. Both help support the immune system, Hazel said.

“I have a background in nutrition. That’s one of the things I want to bring forward,” she said.

Hazel said that she is worried that the message about what to do to prevent the spread of the virus has not gotten out. She sees people bypassing the hand sanitizer they have set out or not washing their hands, she said.

“We find ourselves talking to people a lot: ​‘What are you doing to avoid spreading it? Make sure you are having that conversation with your loved ones,’” she said.