Greg mentioned it in a comment but it’s worth it’s own post ..
Like the rest of us, all of our local restaurants and their staff were blindsided by all of this. Their normal businesses were shut down yesterday for public safety reasons.
Here are 39 local restaurants that have made a quick pivot and will be in the take-out/delivery business until further notice. The link has all of their menus. So in the weeks ahead, when you want a break from the K-rations and cornflakes, order dinner from one of many local restaurants who would love your business. Have them deliver … or better yet, get out of the house, take a walk and pick it up.
Good job to the Chamber of Commerce for putting this together so quickly
Seems like they’re starting tomorrow (Wednesday), so don’t set your heart on take-out tonight (says the hungry person).
We just has a delicious take out dinner from Dunn Gaherins (spaghetti bolognese, Guiness pot roast).
It was heartening to see cars lined up in the parking lot waiting for their orders to come out the door. It was even more heartening to see that Christopher Osborne from Better Life Food was working as the runner in the parking lot. Christopher’s business was closed today so he came over to pitch in at Dunn Gaherins out of solidarity.
Better Life Food and Dunn Gaherins are old friends and collaborators. Together they orchestrate all the food at the annual Feast of the Falls. It was great to see them working together aganin amidst all of this.
If you do avail yourself of any of the many restaurants that have switched to delivery/take-out, please be patient. All of these businesses shut down one business yesterday and opened a similar but different business today. They are all scrambling as fast as they can but there will be inevitable glitches in the first few days as they figure out all the details.
At Dunn Gaherins tonight the phone was the bottleneck, despite the valiant efforts of DG’s Laura. The hiccups in the process – getting the right food to the right people in the parking lot at the right time will no doubt be worked out in the days ahead. I’m sure you’ll see similar wrinkles at the other restaurants that just made this switch, so please cut them all a bit of slack through their teething pains. It’s pretty amazing to see that these folks have transformed their entire businesses in 24 hours.
I am making a point to get takeout from HOUSE OF TANDOOR this week. I really want to see this restaurant thrive
Jerry, Thank you for the kind words. Better Life Food is taking a few days to change our business model from Cater to Take Out/Delivery of family dinners and more. We plan on starting dinners/lunches on Monday, March 23rd.
We will post information and online ordering on our website http://www.betterlifefood.com. You will be able to pay online as well so there will be no hand to hand exchanges and we can all kept our required social distancing.
In the interim if any of our neighbors are interested please reach our to us as [email protected]
Ordered a Gryo online at Graph Leaf for lunch. Ready on the counter for pick up.
Possessing close to zero cooking skills myself, I love and support many of Newton’s great restaurants. Collectively they are one of the most compelling reasons to live in this city of 13 [pardon me] 14 villages. As with cooking, I claim no expertise in the arena of public health. So this comment is just based on my layman’s observation.
At this moment in time, restaurant takeout food seems like an unsafe idea to me. I stopped ordering takeout sometime last week and switched exclusively to packaged supermarket food. As soon as more coronavirus test kits are made available and restaurants are able to screen the health of food preparers, I’ll be the first in line to pick up meals from some of my favorite establishments.
Am I being overly cautious? Viewing this situation incorrectly? I welcome feedback.
@Mike Striar –
No. Everyone is sailing in uncharted waters. My first advice to anyone would be if your instinct is towards more caution – follow it.
For me, I’m comfortable with takeout/delivery service. Even in normal times the food handling in most restaurants’ kitchens is more careful then in most of our home kitchens. This is doubly true at the moment since every restaurant is acutely aware of the current situation.
@Jerry
Thanks for responding. I desperately want to support these Newton restaurants that I love. My concern is that a food preparer may be unaware they are sick, and inadvertently spread the virus to many more people. I’d like to see the City move quickly to test restaurant workers as soon as enough test kits are available. That would go a long way to reassuring the public that restaurant take out food is safe.
Mike, I am inclined to believe that takeout or delivered restaurant food is safer than traveling to a supermarket and buying food. It’s simply a more controlled environment. Every restaurant is regularly evaluated for health and safety. Not every one is perfect, but there is a standard. The number of people handling your food is relatively small.
Exposure before cooking should be mitigated by heat. Exposure after cooking would probably be from one or two people. While we have some sense how long viruses live on surfaces, we don’t know how contagious they are when picked up that way. You can take steps to minimize even that risk (throw away the takeout packaging, wash hands, etc).
In a supermarket, you’ve got customers and staff in the space with you, in addition to touching stuff. Droplet and surface exposure from unknown numbers of the general public.
That’s not to say supermarkets pose a great risk, it’s just they are more random than takeout.
There seems to be different opinions on this issue, but as long as you wash your hands after touching containers or surfaces, you’ll greatly reduce your risk.
I think at this point most people working on restaurants, particularly smaller ones, as acutely aware of the potential risk they pose to the public. The owner of Mango Thai in West Newton was very sad and upset a couple of days ago because of a customer ordering her to wipe down his takeout container from across the room. She stays home the whole rest of the day to protect her family and her customers.
Please, be kind and understanding. This is an incredibly stressful time for everyone. Together, we’re trying to hold some semblance of normalcy together. People working in public are taking risks to serve.
@Mike Halle
Thanks for the feedback. It might really help a lot of restaurants in Newton if the Health Department issued some guidance on takeout food. I’d love to be able to continue eating takeout from some of my favorite places in Newton.
The chamber has been working closely with restaurants and the health department and our health inspectors have been actively working with our restaurants.
From my perceptive the communication has been quite good under extraordinary conditions.
Also, while most of us are home and able to cook, let’s not forget our health care workers, first responders and yes even grocery store workers and many others who don’t have time — or the ability — to shop and/or cook. If we shut down takeout, what will they do?
I’m really encouraged by Greg’s comments. I’d be delighted to start getting takeout again. The Newton Health Department should publicly post their latest rules for restaurants that are still doing takeout, and issue guidance to consumers. I’m all-in with takeout as soon as the Health Department says it’s okay.
Mike: With one exception (which I’ll get to in a second) the rules haven’t changed. All of these restaurants have been previously approved for takeout, which means they’ve been inspected for following the rules for hand washing, sanitary preparation, proper storage, food temperature, packaging, etc. I’d say, if you were comfortable with the particular establishment before (and we probably all have that place we’ve decided we’d never go again), then we should remain comfortable. And you can always check their inspection scores.
The one rule change was noted in the mayor’s newsletter today:
I also asked the mayor today to suspend the paper bag fee ordinance. It’s not appropriate at this time to ask a cashier to handle our reusable bags. Still waiting for a response.
Take out from House of Tandoor tonight was delicious.
Mike, I’m also wary of takeout. My family will only be getting items that we can reheat (i.e. pastas, pizza) and nothing that requires hands to touch it – no sandwiches, no wraps, no burritos, no sushi. And of course cleaning our hands etc before we eat.
I am getting take out more now than ever to try to keep restaurants open but do know folks who are afraid to because they don’t want more hands on their food or boxes they come in. I tell them, from my perspective, as long as you wash your hands after touching the container, then let it sit for a while before eating it, I think you will be ok. I hope I’m right. I don’t know if there is any right answer. Everyone has to do what’s right for them.
I’ve started making a list of places I usually frequent that are staying open for take out. One of my favorites is Dumpling House and my lab tech son picked up dinner from Brewer’s Coalition mainly because of their 20% off for healthcare workers and emergency personnel.
I know that China is on a different timeline than we are with the virus. But 4-6 weeks ago I saw a news story focused on takeout food delivery in a major Chinese city…
The masked delivery person leaves the food outside the residence and takes a few steps back to maximize social distancing. The customer picks up the food, leaves payment and walks back inside. Along with the food the customer receives an official form that details the name, health status and current body temperature of both the food preparer and delivery person…
I’m not suggesting we need to do the same thing. I have no expertise in this field. But I do know it would go a long way to reassuring customers [including me], if the Newton Health Department issued specific restaurant guidelines regarding takeout food and caronavirus.
Mike: A lot of our restaurants are adopting the similar practices, minus the masks since we need to save those for health care workers.
Some have you call when you arrive and then leave your order on a table outside the front door, they go back in, you leave the car and pick it up.
Delivery crews do a similar thing: leave it at your door then call/text to let you know it’s there.
Call the restaurant and work out a solution you feel most comfortable with. And choose a restaurant you’re familiar with and know has a good reputation.
@Greg– The issue we keep dancing around is… Why has there been no public guidance about takeout food from the Health Department? Any reassurance from them would go a long way.
By the way, you mentioned on another thread that you liked pad thai. Have you tried Pineapple Thai Cuisine at The Street in Chestnut Hill? Beyond delicious! I also love their Drunken Noodles with chicken.
Uh, perhaps because we’re in the middle of a pandemic and the health department is a tad busy?
Really Mike. You don’t feel safe ordering those drunkin noodles? Then you shouldn’t. I’m not sure what else to tell you but thanks for the recommendation.