Feeding the Front Lines

Serving Those Who Work to Keep Us Safe

When Chef Edward Bolus walked out of his kitchen at Mill’s Tavern in early March, he didn’t know when he would see it again. Closed by Governor Gina Raimondo’s executive order to cease dine-in service to prevent the spread of Covid-19, Mill’s Tavern didn’t have a previously established takeout program nor plans to implement one.

Along with Kate Turner, general manager for Encore Hospitality Group (which includes Mill’s Tavern and Red Stripe restaurants) and in partnership with the Ocean State Job Lot Charitable Foundation, Bolus regrouped and helped launch “Meals with a Mission,” a meal-delivery program for front-line workers and other Rhode Islanders in need. The program makes good use of commercial food products that, in normal times, would be delivered to large restaurants, hotels and cafeterias.

“We have been focusing on first responders—police, fire, public safety officials of all sorts, health care workers—and we have done some work with getting food out to people who are just economically disadvantaged in the community,” says Turner. In addition to hospitals and nursing homes, Turner has orchestrated meal deliveries to the Providence VA Medical Center, the Rhode Island Department of Health, the National Guard, Pawtucket Soup Kitchen, Pawtucket Housing Authority, Progreso Latino in Central Falls and the City of Pawtucket’s public safety office as well as child welfare organizations like Children’s Friend.

“It’s a really diverse list of organizations,” says Turner. “We’re doing our best to pool all of our resources to help as many people as possible.” Together, Mill’s Tavern and Red Stripe have been donating approximately 5,000 meals a week. For Bolus, the cooking part is second nature (though he says that going from around 150 plated meals a night to 500 mass prep items daily has been daunting); it’s the logistics of not knowing what foods will be available on a weekly basis that keeps him and his chef de cuisine, Christian Chin, on their toes.

“We’ve been taking trips down to Job Lot once a week to dig into three or four refrigerated trailers and … on the fly, make a menu with what we’re given.” Countless pounds of lobster bisque became a lobster cream sauce for penne, while pasta primavera utilizes hundreds of fresh vegetables. “It’s like the mystery baskets on ‘Chopped,’” laughs Turner.

The program has also brought many Encore employees back to work, separated into two socially distanced shifts. Turner and Bolus agree that “restaurant people” aren’t used to downtime, and co-workers are more like family.

“It’s gratifying to be doing something helpful for the community,” says Bolus. “It’s not just going to work again. It’s going to work with a purpose.”

Commander Thomas A. Verdi, deputy chief of the Providence Police Department, says the outreach from local businesses and restaurants to responders during Covid-19 “has been nothing short of amazing.”

He adds, “In the challenging times that we are all facing right now, support of this kind is truly invaluable.” While the pandemic has delivered a devastating blow to most of Rhode Island’s restaurant industry, other food operations are thriving.

The business model of Feast & Fettle, a gourmet meal delivery service that got its start at Hope & Main’s food incubator and now operates from a commercial kitchen in East Providence, was predicated on online ordering and contactless service. When the pandemic hit, Founder and Executive Chef Maggie Mulvena saw an opportunity to use the tools the company already had in place to help others. “We’re completely built for this,” she says. “We haven’t had to pivot at all.” In fact, six of its 15 part-time employees have recently been hired to meet demand (10 full-time employees are on staff). Typically, the company delivers nearly 600 pre-ordered fresh meals to clients twice weekly; and has scheduled an additional delivery day solely dedicated to front-line workers and staff at Rhode Island, Bradley, Hasbro Children’s, Women & Infants and Kent hospitals.

“We started this April 2nd and have delivered every week since then,” says Mulvena. Adhering to safety guidelines, the company provides a range of salads, sandwiches, hot dishes, snacks and desserts with the help of partners, including Seven Stars Bakery and PVDonuts. Heartfelt messages of thanks to the company have poured in, from nurses saying it’s the only meal they’ll have that day to other workers saying they often have extra to take home for friends and elderly neighbors.

Mulvena says she saw other organizations coordinating mass efforts in major cities like Boston, New York and Los Angeles, but the small size of the Ocean State inspired her to make the necessary connections. “Rhode Island was being left to fend for itself in some ways … I said, ‘Let’s do this ourselves. Let’s figure this out.’”

It’s easy to see how the inspiration to serve front-line workers motivated Mulvena to make it happen. Dr. Libby Flores, an OB/gyn, risks her own health and that of her young family while she serves as an emergency room doctor at Women & Infants Hospital. She recently began subscribing to Feast & Fettle for home where “my husband is working with the two kids.”

“It’s been tremendous for morale. The staff particularly appreciated the fresh, healthy, local products that were included from Feast & Fettle,” says Ivan Colón, philanthropy officer of annual giving for Care New England. Overseeing restaurant donations to Kent, Butler and Women & Infants hospitals, Colón has witnessed the uplifting effect of donated meals, which have been nourishing body and soul in these trying times. “It gives them the assurance knowing that the community is supporting them and is grateful for all the work they’ve done.”

The accompanying photograph of Dr. Libby Flores, an OB/gyn at Women & Infants Hospital, was taken for a project created by Rhode Island portrait and documentary photographer and longtime Edible Rhody contributor, Stephanie Alvarez Ewens. Ewens is highlighting front-line and essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic. To learn more, get involved, or help fund the project, please visit StephanieEwens.com/frontliners. We are proud include Dr. Flores’ portrait in our story about food deliveries to front-liners. For more on her story, go to #SeeOurFrontliners on Instagram.