Top Chef Eric Ripert talks food donation efforts, timeline for reopening restaurant

World-renowned chef Eric Ripert talks efforts by World Central Kitchen and City Harvest to provide food to front line workers and people in need.

Healthcare workers on the front lines are working long, hard hours amid the Covid-19 pandemic – some pulling extra shifts without even stopping to eat.

And as many restaurants across the country donate meals to keep essential healthcare workers fed, giving back to others has had another much needed consequence: It’s helping keep those restaurants in business and their staff working.

- Helping in Harlem -

Joseph “JJ” Johnson, is the owner of Fieldtrip restaurant in the Harlem neighborhood in New York City, which has over 100,000 cases citywide. And his wife is a nurse.

″[My wife] came home from work one day, and was like, ‘It’s 12 at night. I didn’t eat all day. Did you cook? Did you bring any food home from Fieldtrip?’

“And I was like ‘No I didn’t. How didn’t you eat? You left the house at like 10 a.m.’”

“She was like, ‘It’s crazy. Covid-19 stuff is crazy.’ And she broke out into tears.”

Johnson knew he had to do something.

So on March 25, the chef sent 40 of his restaurant’s signature rice bowls with meat or fish, vegetables and other sides from to Harlem Hospital Center, which had closed its food concession due to illness.

Johnson then shared his Harlem Hospital delivery on Twitter, adding that he would continue to deliver meals to hospitals in the area.

“Two people came on Twitter like, ‘I want to send food through you guys tomorrow,’ and I was like, ‘Oh my god, that brings back like two of my team members,’ because there’s no possible way I could put out all this food by myself,” Johnson said.

“From that moment, the momentum just kept going.”

But delivering the meals has not only helped the community — it has also helped his restaurant and staff.

After the March 15 executive order in New York City mandating restaurants may only stay open for takeout or delivery, Johnson had to let his staff of 10 go, but with the intention to rehire them.

Now, to make and deliver the donated meals, he has brought back seven of his employees.

Each meal bowl from Fieldtrip is $10, and with every bowl purchased online, customers have the option to donate $8 for a free meal. As of April 3, Johnson and his Fieldtrip team had received around $15,000 in donations, he said.

“Out of that $15,000 dollars, if you divide it by $8, that’s how many meals we will serve,” he says, which is 1,875 meals.

“So, it came full circle. I could feed people. People are donating. They’re able to sponsor a bowl. That then brings my staff back in to work, and now people have jobs. They feel hope,” he said.

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