What do you miss most about restaurants right now? I miss the anticipation, the hum, the smells, the glow. I miss how restaurants restore me, whether it’s tacos at a picnic table after a five-and-a-half-hour flight to LAX or a dozen oysters at the counter of my local after work. Most of all, I miss the hospitality of restaurant people, their generosity.
This spring, I witnessed that big-hearted spirit more than ever, as food industry leaders met the pandemic with acts of heroism: Chefs turned their restaurants into community kitchens; spirits manufacturers distilled hand sanitizer in addition to vodka. Thousands came up with new business plans literally overnight. More recently, as waves of protests against systemic racism and police brutality roiled the nation in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, restaurants stepped up again, throwing their support behind Black Lives Matter through supporting Black-owned businesses, donating to racial justice organizations, and feeding protestors.
Yet in spite of all the scrappy innovation and activism, the state of the nearly $1 trillion restaurant economy—one that makes up an estimated 4% of America’s GDP and employs 15.6 million people—remains unstable. While the dimmer lights slowly turn back on in some states along with new restrictions for dining in, more than 6 million restaurant workers remain unemployed. Some of your favorite places won’t reopen.
What happens to them impacts us all. Restaurants are a foundation of the American economy. So what’s the way forward out of this mess? And what will restaurants look like on the other side? We found hope in the 2020 class of Food & Wine Best New Chefs—ten talents who make some of the sharpest, most forward-thinking, and most satisfying food in America. For 32 years, the accolade has celebrated not only the best cooking of the day, but also the culinary leaders of tomorrow. This year’s class, the first selected by Restaurant Editor Khushbu Shah, is no different. We heard a rallying cry from Best New Chef Tavel Bristol-Joseph, co-owner and executive pastry chef at five Austin restaurants, who sees the challenges facing his generation as an opportunity to lead the industry forward: “I don’t want to adapt to the change,” he told us. “I want to be the change.”
Let’s not waste the lessons that adversity teaches us. Let’s come out of this crisis with a new understanding of the true costs of operating the restaurants we miss. Let’s show more hospitality to the people who cook for us and the people who serve us. Let’s start there.
The future of restaurants will depend on all of us.