- So this is Olmsted.
The dining room
obviously is not really a dining room anymore.
We've pushed all the tables to the side.
I like to make the joke that we're
a little bit of a bodega, but instead
of a bodega cat I got my dog.
Right, Spud?
We're gonna start getting our day going
with the food bank and the trading post.
(remixed gentle piano music)
This is Ben.
He heads up the kitchen when it comes
to the food bank stuff for the most part.
This is his little world.
This is Jackson.
- How y'all doing?
We're not live streaming this are we?
- Say hi to mom.
(laughing)
- We're on Twitch.
- See, morale's still high.
These guys showed up on day one
when we opened up the food bank.
They're the ones that are holding down the fort here.
Why did you do it, guys?
- I didn't really think twice.
- Yeah, just get out there and help out.
- Folks are hungry.
- We're getting a lot of beans right now
and we're getting a lot of farro.
So Ben takes it upon himself to make sure
that every day, because we get repeat guests,
that we try to put out a different meal.
All right, thanks.
Bye.
All right, we gotta go to the hospital now.
So this is the beans, farro, kale, pork belly dish
for frontline workers that we're gonna go deliver.
So any given week we do somewhere around
200 to 300 meals just for frontline workers.
We get $10 a meal to help fund the bank
in exchange for providing food for the hospitals.
And so the more we can do that,
the more we can keep the food bank going.
- Where are you guys from?
- This restaurant over by
Prospect Park called Olmsted.
- Olmsted?
- Olmsted, yeah.
- Barbecue place?
- Nah, I wish.
(laughing)
- Thank you so much.
This made a lot of difference for us.
In the time that we had COVID.
- My sister did a residency here.
- Wonderful.
We're not alone in this.
- Yeah.
- We're all together.
- Bye guys.
- Thank you.
- So now that we're eight weeks into this
we are preparing meals for three different avenues.
One is for the store, frontline workers,
and for the food bank.
Once we get back from the hospital,
the deliveries start to come in,
the donations start to come in,
and we're menu planning for tonight.
- Dude, this is so much, man.
- Yeah, it's a lot.
- This is Mac, my friend.
DeBragga very graciously just donated a ton of stuff.
They've donated in the beginning
and throughout the whole process.
They just brought us a whole bunch of beef hearts.
Beef trim.
That goes to the chef's counter.
All of a sudden his whole business shut down.
So in the beginning it was perishable,
then it was what can they do to help.
Now that we're eight weeks into it, it's the freezer.
- Which is exactly it.
Now it's looking at items that probably aren't going
to move that used to move in the old times.
- So we're gonna probably take some of the trim
and some of the hearts and grind it.
Honestly we'll probably make some type
of Hamburger Helper kind of a thing
for tonight for the food bank.
So we're in the s***.
While we were delivering to the frontline workers
these guys had someone knock on the door
for a church in Red Hook, so everything
that we were gonna use that we had ready
for tonight, unfortunately or fortunately,
however you look at it, is out the door.
We open at 4.
We kinda gotta move fast.
Down!
We started out by trying to produce
food for unemployed restaurant workers.
We'll grind a couple of beef hearts in there too.
For flavor.
And within hours of being open that became
just anyone that needs it, and we try
to get anything we can get our
hands on that someone might need.
We're not being creative just because
we wanna be creative with the food,
we're being creative because we need
to make random stuff like celery taste good,
because we got truckloads of celery one day.
It's about nourishment and reaching
as many people as necessary.
We're not just operating a food bank,
we're operating a food bank in a pandemic.
Just coming up with different things to do with beets.
Turning those beets into a roasted side,
or a pickled beet salad the next day,
it's definitely hard for sure.
I would just start taking this and celery
and just start small-dicing it.
Then that way we can sweat it out,
add all the ground beef to it with that
and a whole bunch of Jasper Hill cheddar cheese.
And that way when they microwave it at home
it'll all melt and be gooey and delicious.
Good?
All right.
We'll roast it all off.
We'll get the pasta going in a minute.
And then we'll start to make a little bit
of a sauce and make it tasty.
There's a lot that comes with operating a food bank.
It's not just "Olmsted is now a food bank."
And everything, that's the only
variable that's changed, you know?
We don't have dishwashers, we don't have
front of the house, we don't have repairmen
to come to fix something when it's broken
because there's no money to do that.
It's me and these guys and whoever comes to help, you know?
I'm gonna go look for some tomato product.
We wanna build flavor with it.
For the most part the way we receive financial
donations are through the LEE Initiative.
So people, if they wanna support us,
they donate to the LEE Initiative and then
they distribute it to the food banks
that are having the roughest time, basically.
Hamburger Helper, brought to you
by the great people of Tabasco.
Life hasn't gotten any easier
with my restaurant shutting down.
Spud, how important is our relationship?
In a world of isolation, it's nice to have this guy.
(Spud barking)
Okay.
So we're gonna go through our little Jumanji hallway here.
Now that we're entering this new chapter
of how do we reopen the business, how do we
start bringing back more employees, we have just
opened up a store in our private dining room.
We're calling it the Olmsted Trading Post.
This was a really beautiful room that my dad
drove out from Chicago to build.
I think my dad would be a little offended
that I had to put a big refrigerator in here.
But, you know, I gotta make do.
So up until this point we haven't made any income.
It's time to try to juggle both
the food bank and saving the business.
So this is the team.
Oh I can't hug you.
I was gonna hug you.
(laughing)
This is Alex.
Alex and I know each other from our
Blue Hill at Stone Barns days.
When I was the chef, he was the pastry chef.
We have stories.
- We have stories, lots of stories, yes.
- People like his stuff.
This is all, all this work is gonna be gone
in two hours and we're still trying to figure it out.
Especially he just came up with, is this this one?
Oh yeah.
The sauerkraut one?
It's like sourdough bread with sauerkraut.
You can't keep up with him.
- Wanna slice it up?
- No no no no.
We need to sell it.
We're not cutting into that thing.
- We need some social media, so it's convenient.
(laughing)
Do you want me to cut one of the sauerkraut breads?
It's beautiful inside.
He doesn't want me to, but I think
everybody has to see how beautiful
this bread is from the inside.
Now I'm getting in trouble.
(laughing)
- He just say something inappropriate?
- No.
- Oh he did it?
You asshole.
(laughing)
It's the new Cronut.
Mark my words.
In addition to never owning or operating
a food bank, I've also never owned
or operated a grocery store.
This is nuts.
So there's just been a lot of curve balls.
Well it's 2 o'clock and we're about to open the store.
We just filled this yesterday with stuff and it's
all gone and we're having a hard time keeping up.
Kevin, what did we learn about doing a store?
I learned that this stupid ugly thing cost $1,300.
- Keep producing and keep up with demand
Which is the best problem to have.
- We are not the place where it's like
we make 50 a day and it runs out
and screw whoever was waiting in line.
It feels uncomfortable for us
because we don't have that right now.
We don't like that we're doing that,
but we have to start making money.
All right, you want me to do the music?
- Go ahead.
- I can do it.
I, it's...
- I tried everything.
- Nah--
- Turn to its right.
- I know, you just...
(banging)
Other things I don't know how to do.
This is what 15 years of working
in three Michelin star restaurants gets you.
Pounding on a stereo to get...
I thought I had it.
How do I do this?
All good problems because it's busy,
but it's a lot of logistics.
Anything that people want to eat
and pay for is on the table right now.
- Fire another sandwich.
- Four all day?
- Four all day.
- Sweet!
- Two by one by one.
Me being from Chicago,
I'm making four Chicago-style
Italian roast beef sandwiches.
To save Olmsted.
My Wendy's manager would be
upset with my station right now.
I hate you!
I don't mean that.
Okay, I'm officially going down on roast beef sandwiches.
Here we go.
Gotta make it nice and saucy.
You know, in the beginning I kept using this phrase
of, "The Olmsteds of the world are gonna make it."
I'm worried about the Thai place that I just
ordered from for staff meal.
- I just pulled the Kronenbourg out of the walk-in
and started selling it.
(laughing)
I wanna also grab those escargot dishes that were new.
- And just sell them?
- Yes.
- Sure.
I don't say that the Olmsteds of the world
are gonna make it anymore.
So it's a lot to sit on when I just
killed myself for 15, 20 years
of working at all these restaurants
to have everything just shut and now I own
a grocery store where I'm picking up
roast beef sandwiches, you know?
I'm still proud of everything that we're doing.
Boom!
(rhythmic drumming)
So this I do remember
from Wendy's.
Coming in hot, all of them!
Here we go.
The baguettes sold already?
If there is a silver lining on the trading post side
it's that I always wanted to open up
a bakery with our pastry chef Alex Grunert
and so this is sorta us testing that out.
Too hot to bring out, Chef, or...
- No, it can go.
- He's making baguettes right now and these
are the ones that just came out of the oven.
We are one hour into our third day.
We've been open for an hour and 15 minutes
and we'll be out of bread in probably 45 minutes.
Which we don't like, you know?
We also want to be something that's open
seven days a week just like the food bank
so we're just like a constant.
We want to be reliable, you know?
That's what matters to us.
We try to always go above and beyond
for the people that are customers.
Whether they're for the food bank or for purchase.
Okay, so the store is in terrible shape, no.
The store is rocking and rolling.
And we're gonna go check on
the team over here for the bank.
Did you like it, Ben?
Was it all right?
- Yeah.
- That is pretty good.
I might take some of that home.
Spud, we got dinner tonight, man.
You're gonna get us shut down
because you're gonna be on camera.
Spud, you want a mask?
(laughing)
Looks like it's coming along kinda nice right?
Got a nice beautiful beet salad.
The pasta is super tasty.
This is our beauty shot.
No.
I think you're gonna make a good, I think 200.
Unfortunately that means we'll be
scrambling again tomorrow.
(laughing)
We will literally do this all over again.
- Yeah.
- We have volunteers come and assess what's gonna
go in the actual bag beyond just the food,
and those volunteers start to package it up
and put out the signage and get
the food bank ready to open.
So this is the spread.
Ideally we would have more, you know, more canned food.
We want it to be more than just the one dinner, you know?
We want it to be worth it to make
the trek all the way over here, you know?
And we try to just restock it and not really
mingle out there so people feel comfortable.
It's like a weird thing.
What is a successful food bank?
Is it when it's no longer needed anymore?
Is it ramping up in numbers?
(classical orchestra music)
All right, so it's coming on 7 o'clock.
We're gonna wrap it up.
These are gonna be the last of our meals
for the day and then we're gonna start breaking down.
Hey, our hats are here!
I gotta sell it, I shouldn't wear it.