The Deal That's Saving San Francisco's Restaurants

In Montana, a handful of manufacturers have adapted their facilities to make products and materials that help healthcare workers safely work on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic. From face shields to liquid transport mediums, these businesses are finding new ways to play a larger role in the efforts to contain the virus, while also keeping their employees working.

Baltimore ice cream maker Taharka Brothers is six Black men, worker-owners, who lost most of their business accounts at the start of the pandemic. They saved their business, and their jobs, by starting home delivery and tapping into collectives that help worker-owned cooperatives with financing and business advice. Gratitude for a decent job, good working conditions, and pride of ownership help sustain such a business through tumultuous times.

A tension fabric structures manufacturing company in Maine has repurposed their facility and transformed their local workforce to create grade-one medical masks for the local hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic. Because the company uses only U.S.-made materials, they have been able to avoid supply chain interruptions and now plans to continue making masks as part of their standard business model even after the pandemic passes.

As COVID-19 challenges businesses around the world, two Malaysian social enterprise companies have seen success in shifting their offerings. The Biji-biji Initiative, a fashion producer linked with the grassroots Social Textiles movement, quickly pivoted to making face shields and have been able to keep people employed while making the PPE for essential workers. PichaEats, a catering company, quickly shifted to making and delivering food for families and healthcare workers, delivering over 20,000 meals so far.

In Los Angeles, fashion industry professionals are working together to create hospital gowns from donated materials for use in hospitals. The project is also helping to employ those who have been laid off from their retail jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic.

As restaurants look at a myriad of ways to enhance the cleanliness of their businesses in light of the coronavirus pandemic, a distillery in North Carolina chose to shift their focus from gin-making to making and distributing hand sanitizer. The owners of the distillery are also training neighboring businesses "how to use the solution responsibly," and then donating bottles of the sanitizer after they complete the session.

When the coronavirus pandemic forced a restaurant in Vermont to close its doors and lay off hundreds of employees, the owner worked with investors to shift his business model so that he could provide meals for those now without work using the backlog of perishable foods. His initiative has now expanded with donations and contributions from community corporations and has even received funding from the state as it has grown to include “collective community gardening.”

To provide community support during the coronavirus pandemic, several businesses and organizations in Denver joined together to create the Denver Metro Emergency Food Network. Using donations, the newly founded nonprofit prepares and delivers free meals "to hungry and homebound Coloradans."

Across England, businesses are stepping up to help their neighbors during the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s Glasses Direct, which is gifting 4,000 pairs of glasses to National Health Service workers, and Fully Charged, offering health care workers 3 months of free e-bike usage. Remote services are being offered too, with Thrive Law has created a helpline for those experiencing crisis to receive free legal advice, and Ascenti, offering free and remote physiotherapy sessions for the elderly and NHS employees.

The owners of an iconic pomade and Chicano hipster fashion manufacturing factory in Santa Ana, California have made the switch to hand sanitizer manufacturing in an attempt to reemploy furloughed employees during the coronavirus pandemic. Functioning like a start-up, their new product goes to hospitals, postal workers, UPS drivers, and cashiers and helps to spread the message to the Latino community that this virus should be taken seriously.