Pandemic restaurant changes aren’t going away anytime soon
THE FOOD ECONOMY
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Detroit’s food distributors survived the pandemic by delivering food to those in need. Will a new way of doing business continue? PAGE 9 How have Detroit’s urban farms fared during the pandemic? PAGE 10
Restaurants, nonprofits ramp up efforts to reduce food waste. PAGE 10 After failures and losses, vertical farm operations expand on growing trend. PAGE 12
FARM TO TABLE A year of unceasing disruption has irrevocably changed how we eat. Here’s how and why the food chain has changed.
CHARLES OSGOOD PHOTOGRAPHY/ARTESIAN FARM
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ACCELERATED EVOLUTION BY NINA IGNACZAK | SPECIAL TO CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
When the pandemic is finally over, SheWolf chef Anthony Lombardo plans to bring his staff out to the alley behind the restaurant on Selden Street and make a bonfire The fuel? The boxes the establishment has been using to package its successful SheWolf Mercato meal kit box. Mercato kept SheWolf afloat during a year that no one could have imagined. But Lombardo is ready to be done with it. Mercato will end with the pandemic. “No more carryout. No more Mercato,” Lombardo said. “We’re very excited to get back to being a restaurant serving food.” For Lombardo, keeping Mercato going would mean splitting his focus from the restaurant’s central mission — to provide a sublime dining expe-
8 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | APRIL 12, 2021
rience. “The people in the dining room could possibly suffer,” he said. “And they’re paying for an experience. We want 100 percent of our focus to be on their experience.” But others across the industry aren’t as adamant about dropping the various innovations and pivots they’ve adopted to survive the pandemic. Some have found more efficient ways of doing business, while others have identified unexpected new revenue streams. As the industry was forced to change, not every establishment survived. But among those who did, many plan to carry lessons learned — and new products and ways of doing business — into a post-pandemic future.
Carryout forever “The pandemic expedited trends that were already underway, and it just ramped them up,” Justin
Winslow, president and CEO of the Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association, said. Curbside, carryout, and delivery are here to stay, Winslow predicts. “It doesn’t replace dining in on a one-to-one ratio, but it’s not going to go back to pre-pandemic levels,” he said. Delivery is what saved The Ferndale Project, an experimental arm of Eastern Market Brewing Co. that moved into the space vacated by Axle Brewing Co.’s Livernois Tap. The new space opened on Feb. 22, 2020. “We opened not knowing that we were about to get hit with a global pandemic,” recalls owner Dayne Bartscht. “I basically just told my wife and kids like ‘Hey, I’m gonna lock myself in a room for the next 48 hours and try to think about what we would do if the pandemic really had an impact on us.’” See RESTAURANTS on Page 14
JOE VAUGHN
Restaurant changes aren’t going away anytime soon
“WE’RE VERY EXCITED TO GET BACK TO BEING A RESTAURANT SERVING FOOD.” — Anthony Lombardo, chef, SheWolf
