COVID Crisis and the Atlanta Hospitality Community: One Year Later

BY: MICHAEL LENNOX

Imagine you earn $350 per week working at a local restaurant. The $350 is before taxes are withheld, so your take home pay ends up being around $250 each week, which means you now have $35 per day to cover food, clothing, housing, and transportation.

Oh, and you also have a small child at home.

Paycheck-to-paycheck? That’s an understatement.

Childcare? Forget about it.

Savings? Forget about it.

Bus fare or groceries? Phone bill or groceries? Rent or groceries?

Sounds tough, doesn’t it?

Over the last year, the hospitality industry has seen an unprecedented $240 billion decline in revenue, as more than 100,000 restaurants have closed with hundreds of thousands others operating on a wing and a prayer. While the industry as a whole has felt the COVID crisis materially, the restaurant workforce - which makes $350 per week on average pre-COVID and was already fragile financially - has borne the brunt of the impact. Metro Atlanta alone had approximately 300,000 hospitality workers at the beginning of 2020, yet best estimates show that 30% or more remain unemployed one year into the crisis. As a restaurant owner and operator, I know first hand the trauma that this crisis has inflicted on the hospitality workforce.

Monday, March 16, 2020 was easily the most difficult day of my life as I had to share with all 125 of our staff and management that we were closing our three restaurants indefinitely. Only able to fund payroll one more time without any line of sight to steady future revenue, we had to furlough everyone until further notice.

Recognizing that the scale of the crisis was much larger than our restaurants, we officially launched ATLFAMILYMEAL the very next day, charged with a mission to feed, nourish and support hospitality workers and their families experiencing food insecurity and joblessness.

The inspiration behind the new nonprofit was simple: “family meal”. In restaurants all over the country, “family meal” is a cherished daily tradition where the front-of-house staff (i.e., servers, bartenders, bussers, etc.) and back-of-house staff (i.e., line cooks, dishwashers, etc.) gather together before or after a shift to break bread as a family over a humble, hearty meal prepared by the kitchen. If restaurants were closed and staff were separated, we had to bring “family meal” to people’s homes not only to provide nourishment during a time of financial and emotional distress, but also to provide much-needed warmth and hospitality to the very people who serve restaurant guests each and every day.

The need was immediate - we had to move fast and operate at a much larger scale than our restaurants were capable of in order to help as many people in our industry as possible. So, I began calling and emailing everyone I knew in the industry to galvanize support for the initiative. I knew that our industry was uniquely positioned to step up to the plate to prepare large quantities of nutritious meals and efficiently get them to those in our industry experiencing the worst of the crisis. But we had to think big and move fast.

I am proud to share that with the outpouring of support from generous donors, corporate sponsors, in-kind donations, Feed the Fam attendees and community partners like Atlanta Community Food Bank, Latin American Association and Second Helpings, ATLFAMILYMEAL has been able to facilitate the production and delivery of more than 200,000 meals to more than 1,400 hospitality households in 20 different counties throughout metro Atlanta over the last twelve months.

These numbers tell the story of countless restaurants, vendors, volunteers, donors, stakeholders, and community organizations who have made this work possible. Seeing the impact that comes from serving our own is the fuel that continues to drive us. As one hospitality worker and ATLFAMILYMEAL participant told us, “I loved getting high quality food from local sources. It meant something to me that somebody local cared about me, and other people in their community, enough to make and deliver a great meal. Being unemployed and isolated was a very vulnerable and lonely place to be. Having a friendly face deliver a hot meal really warmed my spirits on top of helping me financially.”

It is hard to fathom, but March 17, 2021 marked exactly one year since we launched ATLFAMILYMEAL. One year later, there is fortunately much to be excited and optimistic about as an accelerated vaccine rollout and sunny spring days are bringing the long-awaited prospects of quality time with friends and loved ones into reach.

No matter how strong this siren song toward better days may be, in our rush to embrace a “return to normal life” it will be impossible for us in the hospitality industry to forget about the 30% of our peers who remain out of work. ATLFAMILYMEAL will continue providing meals to restaurant workers in need for as long as the need remains. Hunger wields a powerful disruptive force over one's daily life, so in addition to our core meal program fighting food insecurity in our industry, we also envision adding job training and placement, language instruction and other workforce development programs to further promote equitable and sustainable careers in hospitality. Through good times and bad, restaurants serve as a bedrock of our communities, and restaurants are uniquely positioned to be a place of joy and healing as we continue to climb out of this crisis. While those of us who are fortunate enough to continue to work in our industry are overjoyed to safely welcome you back to our restaurants this spring and summer, please remember that our work is just beginning and only through your support can we build a stronger community together.

Michael Lennox is the CEO/Founder of Electric Hospitality (Ladybird, Golden Eagle, Muchacho). Michael quickly mobilized to create ATLFAMILYMEAL after identifying the urgent humanitarian need within the greater hospitality industry set into motion by the COVID-19 crisis. Since its inception, the organization has brought together a community of chefs, restaurant owners, hospitality workers, and business/non-profit leaders to prepare and deliver meals to hospitality workers and their families throughout a 20+ county area across metro Atlanta.