We all need a fairy godmother

We all need a fairy godmother

As I write this post, it is three days into our outdoor seating closure and two days from the most significant election of our lifetime. Dare I say, it is a time of high anxiety and uncertainty. Is anyone else having trouble sleeping at night?

Here is a snapshot of what’s going on at Detroit Street: We announced on Friday that we were doing our part to stem the spread of COVID, before COVID came to us. With cases skyrocketing here and everywhere, we made the responsible choice to stop all on-site service. However, with our outdoor dine-in business accounting for nearly half of our sales from June through October, that was a gutsy move. And we are feeling it. That decision cost us about $4,500 in lost sales on Friday and Saturday combined. It’s a bitter pill to swallow. I’m feeling a little nervous and so are staff members. Fortunately, our warm-weather sales gave us a financial cushion… for now.

"Revisiting The Plague.” A Camus review from 2004 holds relevance today.

"Revisiting The Plague.” A Camus review from 2004 holds relevance today.

In 2004, while director of Michigan Peaceworks, I wrote the following piece “Revisiting The Plague.” That time, the post-9/11 era, was defined on the homefront by shrinking civil liberties, and the arrest and detention-without-charge of Muslim immigrants — and abroad by unjust wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lessons of “The Plague” held special meaning then. Fast forward 16 years and “The Plague” again (or still) is instructive, but for new reasons. Faced with an actual plague, plus state-sanctioned and vigilante violence, Camus’ words can inspire us to heal our society and begin to put back together our severely damaged nation and world.

A Requiem for The Lunch Room

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August 22, 2020

A whole month later…

Since my last post we have had:

  • Summertime at Detroit Street, which means a busy patio and sidewalk full of guests eating, drinking and enjoying themselves -- surrounded by plants and flowers. It means sangria and gazpacho and grilled corn and watermelon. There has been live music on most Friday nights, when Mr. B and Pete Siers set up the piano bike and drum kit across the street and regale us with the finest boogie-woogie and blues in the land.

  • Social action, which means campaigns highlighting the need to fund coronavirus testing and the USPS, selling Black Lives Matter shirts and masks and sending proceeds to Peace Neighborhood Center, and providing voter registration forms and absentee ballots at the restaurant. Vote!

  • Big decisions, namely regarding The Lunch Room Diner in Kerrytown. Yes, we have turned the space over to Eat -- a carryout and catering operation in need of a dining room and downtown presence. And we have shrunk from three locations to two in a bid to conserve resources and survive this period. More details below.

  • Staffing stability, with a few changes. The majority of employees are continuing to work and hone their professional skills, making the restaurant function like a well-oiled machine. A handful of staff members have left town and terrific new folks have come in to replace them. 

  • A growing realization that our pandemic business model will probably be in place for another six months or so. We will not offer indoor dining until the situation has drastically improved, which likely means operating as a carryout and delivery operation through the cold months.

  • An increased sense of anxiety about what may happen in the months leading up to and directly following the election, coupled with a growing acceptance that chaos and uncertainty are inevitable.

A LUNCH ROOM POSTMORTEM

As you may know, this business started out as a food cart. My then business partner and next-door-neighbor Joel Panozzo and myself launched our vegan food business in 2011 in a 6’ x 10’ hand-built wooden cart, operating out of a now-defunct food cart courtyard on the west side of downtown. We named it “The Lunch Room.”

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After two successful seasons, we scouted out a brick-and-mortar location and found it in Kerrytown in February 2013. The space we leased was completely barren at the time -- just four walls, an exhaust hood, and a toilet (not a functioning toilet; just a toilet). Everything had been removed in order to install new code-compliant systems: electrical, plumbing, and HVAC. Even the floor was rubble. There was a trench down the middle of the floor, where the sewer line had to be re-connected.

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Joel and I were part of a crew that constructed that space over a six month period. We painted, plastered, ground, hammered, caulked, bled, sweated and cried. We went over-budget in money and time.

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Our food cart patrons helped out by buying gift cards. Friends contributed their labor. We took the wooden marquis from the food cart and affixed it to the outside of the building. Finally that August of 2013, short on sleep and experience and long on chutzpah, we opened our doors.

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In a short time, The Lunch Room found its stride. We got a liquor license in 2014, which expanded our offerings and customer base. We opened our Bakery & Cafe in 2015 because we needed more space to prepare breads and pastries. And we opened Detroit Street Filling Station in 2017 because The Lunch Room constantly had lines out the door and was unable to meet the growing demand. And now, with the pandemic, we have shrunk back to two locations.

I’m not sure how or when The Lunch Room became an Ann Arbor must-visit place or attained cult-status following. It’s hard, when you are somewhere day-in and day-out ,to see changes that an outsider would notice. But there was something about that little space that just screamed “community.” I had countless conversations with guests at the counter and on the floor. Some were quick and superficial but an impressive number were deep and meaningful. I made close friendships there with staff and customers. And maybe it was because the tiny tables were so close together, but one could daily witness interactions between tables. We hosted first dates and wedding anniversaries, small weddings, friend reunions, Halloween parties, scavenger hunts, music nights, and fundraisers. We gave away thousands of dollars to local organizations helping vulnerable populations. We took stands for social justice. We advocated for worker rights and prisoner rights and immigrant rights. And we served up really good food.

There is so much more to write. Who out there has Lunch Room stories to share? Please send them in. We are in a period that does not leave much space for sentimentality, but the closing of The Lunch Room deserves sentimentality. That little space saw so much love.

It helps that Detroit Street Filling Station is in the same neighborhood, has many of the same dishes and staff members as The Lunch Room. Even The Lunch Room’s neon sign is now displayed in the lounge at Detroit Street. RIP The Lunch Room. Your spirit lives on! 

Test, Don't Test

Adventures in pandemic-land continue. First off, I am happy to report that all staff members are healthy. We continue to take and record our temperatures and to answer health-related questionnaires daily. That rules out symptomatic infections among staff. As for the possibility of asymptomatic infections, who knows? The only sure answer would come through periodic testing. But now, 4+ months into this pandemic, widespread testing is still elusive.

On July 7, the county health department wrote to all restaurants: “The new ‘testing cadence’ from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services recommends anyone working in public-facing positions (restaurants, retail, etc.) to be tested every two weeks.” A number of testing sites were listed, including St. Joseph Mercy, Packard Health, CVS, Rite Aid, and others We committed ourselves to following those recommendations, starting with sending our managers to get tested.

One week later, I reported back to the health department: One of our managers was having difficulty getting tested. It turned out that most sites required appointments, and some were not taking appointments at all because they were already scheduled too far out into the future. Other sites would not test asymptomatic workers. Our manager finally ended up getting tested at Packard Health five days ago. He waited for 2 hours in a line of cars for the drive-through test -- and has still not received his results.

Same, Same, Different: Dispatch from vacation

Same, Same, Different: Dispatch from vacation

During summertime, the Kerrytown neighborhood marches to the beat of a Farmer’s Market drummer. The local population swells on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when vendors set up their stands and the public streams through to gawk, visit, and purchase produce and crafts. In that regard, this summer is the same as every other. But this summer is also very different. Everyone is wearing masks. People awkwardly and distantly visit with friends and neighbors in conversations that go like this: “hello, hey it’s me behind this mask, how are you?” Foot traffic through the market is one way. Signage tells people to stay six feet apart and move along. Yellow-vest-clad volunteers are there to remind people of the rules.

PART 5

PART 5

Monday July 6

If I were to give this post a title it would be “Learning to live with it.” After weeks and months of ups and downs -- opening this and closing that, getting mixed messages from our leaders, reading ever-changing information about how the virus infects, what it does to the body, and how it may mutate -- it has become clear that no one really knows. There is no timeline, no blueprint, and no master plan. Couple that with the tug of war between racial justice and white supremacy -- people standing up for what’s right being met by a backlash of fear, anger and hatred from those who derive their privilege from the status quo-- and you see that everything hangs in the balance.

Part 4

Mother’s Day, Sunday May 10

I’m starting to experience a new curve on the corona-era rollercoaster. There are many lenses through which to look at this thing. There are the broad sectors-- public health, economic and political. Then there are the personal ones. And then they start to blend together. Each time the stay-at-home order gets extended, on the one hand, I am not surprised or dismayed. It’s necessary and understandable. But it also deepens the feeling of tightrope walking without a net.

I’m feeling the effects of two months of disruption to professional and social routines. These days… confusion, sadness, and fear combine with my usual sense of optimism, creativity, indefatigability and compassion. When I was a U-M student in the 80s, living in East Quad, there was a janitorial closet someone had labeled “Primal Scream.” Rarely used back then, I’m sure it would be in demand right now.