This Restaurant's Survival Strategy: Feeding ER Staffs

As restaurants across the country struggle, Brown Sugar Kitchen stays afloat--and lends a hand--with the help of neighbors and businesses. Tanya Holland opened her restaurant, Brown Sugar Kitchen, in Oakland in 2008. Despite opening in the teeth of the last recession, she thrived. Soul food-loving crowds lined up outside her original location, the national press came calling, Holland appeared on Bravo's Top Chef, and in 2012 the City of Oakland named a day in her honor for "Her Significant Role in Creating Community and Establishing Oakland as a Culinary Center." 

Now, with California's shelter-in-place ordinances keeping customers away from her famed chicken and waffles, Holland is struggling just as so many restaurants are nationwide. But Holland has adapted. She's also teamed up with other Bay Area businesses, organizations, and advocates to help medical first responders and one another.

"The first week was like, 'Let's just move this inventory,' because we didn't plan on being closed, and you're dealing with a lot of perishables," Holland says. "I was just calling everybody I knew who could come grab some food."

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