Recovering

I didn’t know what to expect at Findlay Market that day in April. It had been almost a month since I’d been there, but I wanted some good spinach because I’d been eating a lot of clamshell spinach since the lockdown started, and clamshell spinach just isn’t very good. Pulling into the parking lot, I saw about 10 cars lined up before a stand where customers could pick up orders from their favorite vendors without getting out of their cars. 

We were six weeks into the quarantine and my spirits were low. I was missing my old routines: happy hours at MadTree in Oakley, early dinners of scrap sandwiches and negronis at Longfellow in Over-the-Rhine. I missed the Hungarian mushroom soup at the National Exemplar in Mariemont, the pho at KiKi in College Hill. I missed the scent of warm corn tortillas at Tortilleria Garcia, the goetta and good conversation at Tucker’s on Vine, the General Chu’s street chicken at AmerAsia in Covington, the pitch-perfect lasagna—and Goodfellas atmosphere—of Maury’s Tiny Cove in Cheviot. This is all to say that, as a food writer who moved back home to the Ohio Valley after 16 years in New York, partly because I was so taken by the energy of its food scene, what I was really missing was life itself. 

The saddest part of the virus arriving here when it did was that after decades of trial and error, Cincinnati had finally hit its stride. National media were celebrating our dining scene. Jose Salazar had earned three James Beard Award semifinalist nods for his restaurants where the food feels upscale but the atmosphere remains unbuttoned. Ryan Santos, the chef and owner of Please, had garnered his own JBF semifinalist nod in 2020 for his inventive tasting menus. Tony and Austin Ferrari had relocated back home from San Francisco, opening a friendly Camp Washington coffee shop before expanding to a bright, uplifting space called Fausto inside the Contemporary Arts Center. Molly Wellmann had become known as one of the best bartenders in the country. Sixteen Bricks was featured in Esquire magazine; Allez Bakery in Food & Wine. 

Photography by Tine Hofmann

My point is that Cincinnati was no longer an up-and-coming culinary destination; it was a fully realized one—an established culinary ecosystem in which supremely talented chefs were feeding off a community of equally skilled small farmers, bakers, butchers, fermenters, cheesemakers, ice cream and gelato makers, all of whom inspired meals the likes of which this city had never seen. 

The question COVID-19 presented was how the various parts of this ecosystem would respond. How would they adapt? And would they even survive? 

ALMOST NORMAL

When I arrived at Findlay Market that April day, a sense of pre-shutdown life was still palpable. Customers were buying goetta at Eckerlin Meats and ham salad at Silverglades. Jean Robert de Cavel’s French Crust was doing takeout, and Dean’s Mediterranean Imports was packing orders for customers. I could have tricked myself into thinking we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic if it weren’t for the distances people were keeping from each other and the face masks that ranged from homemade to medical grade. 

My destination for the spinach I craved was ETC Produce & Provisions, opened in 2019 by Toncia Chavez and her husband, Estevan. The couple sells fresh produce grown on their farm in Felicity, Ohio, as well as products from other Ohio Valley farms and artisans. I asked if Toncia was there and two seconds later she came bounding out of nowhere, exhibiting the smile and energy I normally associate with store owners at grand openings. “It’s been crazy here!” she told me. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” 

While the number of customers was down at ETC, the amount they were buying was up. Way up. “People used to buy about six items; now they’re buying around 30,” Chavez said. Her home deliveries had increased to the point where she’d hired 15 additional workers, most of them laid off from OTR restaurants, breweries and tattoo parlors. Sales of salad blends and other greens had more than doubled. She was selling around 200 pounds of onions per week. 

It all made sense, Chavez told me. At a time when walking through the automatic doors of a big grocery store could elicit dread, a lot of folks were opting for safer, more intimate shopping experiences that harkened back to a simpler time. 

That theory was reinforced when I walked into Madison’s grocery just across the street from ETC to pick up some chiles for a pozole I planned to make later in the week. The place was at capacity (only 10 people at a time) as shoppers made quick transactions for locally made breads, pastries and gelato. Customers were chatting about recipes and their own wellbeing with the staff, wishing they could just unmask themselves and hug one another. 

“I think we’ve returned to an almost Main Street mentality when it comes to food shopping,” agreed Len Bleh, owner of the Downtown butcher shop Avril-Bleh & Son, whose sausages, steaks and hot dogs are featured at many Cincinnati restaurants. And while those accounts had nearly vanished, Bleh was seeing unprecedented retail sales, up around 50% more than usual for this time of year. “People are home, they have kids at home and they are eating at home,” Bleh told me. 

But if Avril-Bleh and Findlay Market tricked me into thinking things were normal, the rest of OTR knocked any sense of normalcy right to its knees. Hardly a soul could be found on Vine Street, where once-bustling spots like The Eagle, Taste of Belgium and Holtman’s Donuts were shuttered. And while chef Dan Wright was among the first to open on this section of Vine, his three restaurants (Pontiac, Abigail Street and Senate) were closed even for takeout, which made me worry that none of them were ever coming back. 

And those closures have taken their toll on some of the city’s most beloved artisans. Later that day, Matt Madison, owner of Madisono’s Gelato, told me business was down substantially. Like Bleh, a big part of his sales were to local restaurants and coffee shops. Unlike Bleh, his product is more a luxury than a need. Restaurant customers had stopped placing orders. “I knew we’d have fewer calls, but we didn’t expect zero,” he said. Still, retail sales of his gelato—sold at independent grocery stores, as well as Kroger and Whole Foods—were up 10% over last year, he told me. A good sign of customer loyalty, but not nearly enough to make up for his wholesale losses. Madison was also wondering what Ohio’s appetite for premium ice creams and gelatos would be once the quarantine was over. 

Just when it seemed local food was gaining momentum, everything suddenly changed. “We were just starting to feel real traction,” said Andrea Siefring-Robbins, who, along with her husband, Scott Robbins, owns Urban Stead in Evanston. The two-year-old company’s cheddars, goudas and other cheeses are made on premises in a large tasting room and are served at Cincinnati’s most popular restaurants. “Wholesale was big for us,” Siefring-Robbins said, adding that they were just starting to sell their cheeses to restaurants outside the Ohio Valley in Cleveland, Nashville and beyond. 

After losing their wholesale business, closing the tasting room and laying off their entire staff, the couple had come up with a plan to keep their company on life support. The first step was altering their business model from wholesale to curbside retail. Working with local producers such as Urbana Coffee, Indian Creek Creamery, Hungry Noodle, Allez Bakery and TS Farms in New Vienna, Ohio, they started selling produce, meats and pantry staples to neighborhood residents. “In Evanston, we are in a food desert,” Siefring-Robbins said. “I’ve always wanted to offer a greater variety of products, and this has been an opportunity to see what people want and to see what our ability is to get it to them. And I’ve tried not to do significant markups, usually just a dollar. I knew people would support us initially but I knew our staying power would be longer if we had a bigger variety of products.”

Scott Robbins told me it’ll take a year and a half to two years to get back to where they were before COVID-19. “Are you going to make it?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. We’re going to make it,” he said. “We’ll definitely make it.”

MEANWHILE, ON THE FARM …

Over in North Bend, Ohio, Richard Stewart had big plans for Carriage House Farm. Though his family had run the farm since 1855, he was taking it into the modern age. The farm’s produce had become a favorite among the city’s new generation of chefs. A new outbuilding, designed to host chef-driven dinners and house Stewart’s burgeoning MadHouse Vinegar Company, was nearly complete. And he was starting to level a landfill behind the building to serve as a campground. Ninety percent of Carriage House’s income was wholesale to chefs in the Ohio River valley, and Stewart and his partner, Justin Dean, were working on distributing their distinctive vinegars to both Kroger and Whole Foods. 

“Then COVID-19 happened and we realized we can’t do any of that this year,” Stewart said. But like most small farmers, Stewart knows how to think on his feet. Realizing the on-farm dinners weren’t going to happen, he connected with Curtis Chase, owner of Chloe’s Eatery, a mobile restaurant that serves fried chicken sandwiches, crinkle fries and gourmet hot dogs. “I said, rather than do high-end dinners, let’s go with a food truck,” Stewart said. “It’s simpler, and Curtis is very local food-minded.” 

Stewart also refocused on the farm stand, expanding sales from weekends to weekdays. Along with produce grown at Carriage House, they are selling meats from other local farms and artisan products, boosting business exponentially. Stewart told me his retail sales were almost eclipsing his wholesale numbers, and his community supported agriculture program was looking good with 68 members. Carriage House had also become a retreat for unemployed restaurant workers looking for a place to get away from their houses, breathe some fresh air and figure out what they’ll do once this is all over. “We told them if they need a place to come, just to walk around and think, they could come here,” Stewart said. 

Foxhole Farm in Brookville, Ohio, which sells its produce to dozens of restaurants and markets in the greater Dayton area, also had to rethink its strategy. Samantha Wickham, who runs the farm with her husband, Rich, said that’s par for the course for small farmers. “While we had to shuffle how we channeled our produce to customers, we have more interest than ever in our produce,” she said via email. “Small businesses are capable of gritting it out and turning their business models on a dime to adapt to the curveballs thrown our way. Just like our restaurants, coffee shops and other retail businesses are doing, we are riding the wave. And it really feels as if we are bolstered by the collective ‘hang in there’ energy of the businesses and people of Dayton.”

A NEW HOPE

What struck me in reporting this story was the prevailing sense of optimism most of the region’s food community expressed, not to mention the compassion extended to each other. “Personally, I feel good,” Matt Madison told me, despite the near decimation of his wholesale business. “We have a leg of our business that is still going strong, and we are grateful people are buying our pints. We are lucky enough that our business is still functioning. I feel for our restaurant clients, the ones who are completely shut down. I feel for the dishwashers and the prep cooks, all of those people who are out of work. They have so many things affecting them: renewing liquor licenses and the thousands of dollars it will take to restock and reopen. The one thing I do know is that this is a strong community with a lot of support. We’re not sure what the recipe for success will be, but there are a lot of people out there who want them to succeed.”

Siefring-Robbins said COVID-19 has deepened the relationship between food businesses and their customers in unexpected ways. “Two or three weeks ago, we were putting together groceries for our team,” she said. “A customer came in and paid for all of them in the form of a tip, then she just left. One of the bright spots of this whole thing is that it makes you realize that people are really, really good.”

That goodness isn’t just between artisans and their customers, either. It’s also shared among producers and the restaurants they serve. Bleh, for instance, was trying to make sure his restaurant clients stay in business by letting some defer payment on past-due bills and allow them to pay based on whatever they were making on carryout. “If they had 10 invoices for that month, pay me when you reopen. In the meantime, just keep doing as well as you can.” 

Even as they faced their own financial challenges, the Ohio Valley’s chefs and restaurant workers were doing all they could to help others—from economically disadvantaged neighbors to hospital workers putting their lives on the line every day. Owner Bob Davis opened the huge kitchen in his Blue Ash restaurant Firehouse Grill to Suzy DeYoung’s nonprofit food-rescue effort La Soupe. Gordon Food Service and Home City Ice provided refrigeration; Rhinegeist Brewery lent delivery trucks. La Soupe also launched a Community Kitchen Program through which restaurants such as Taste of Belgium, Kroger Innovation Kitchen and Sleepy Bee opened for chefs to prepare food for distribution through Cincinnati Public Schools. 

Jose Salazar was also assisting the community’s extended family of out-of-work chefs, servers, bussers and dishwashers. While his Downtown place, Mita’s, was closed during the shutdown, volunteers used the space to assemble free meals for unemployed hospitality workers as part of Louisville chef Edward Lee’s LEE Initiative. “We do about 200 of them a day, and 90% of the food is donated,” Salazar said. Throughout the crisis, countless other restaurants have provided free meals for healthcare workers, neighborhood kids and others in need. 

SIGNS OF LIFE

Stopping by Sacred Beast in early May, it hit me again how hard the city’s food community has had to work, retool and rethink their business plans in order to survive. Just after the quarantine began, owners Jeremy and Bridget Lieb changed up their carryout game by offering “Beast Box” meals and selling pantry items in a mini grocery. When I stopped in to pick up a Beast Box for my family, Lieb told me he’d just ordered plexiglass so he could install dividers between booths to keep customers as safe as possible when they returned. As I waited for my food, I overheard Bridget on a call with Congressman Steve Chabot to discuss the Paycheck Protection Program. Their son sat at a booth doing his schoolwork. “In a way, I’m glad my kids get to see us working so hard to keep this business going, that they get to see how much this place means to us,” Lieb said, his voice cracking beneath his mask. 

Walking back to my car I noticed a tent in front of Pontiac, reassuring me that Dan Wright wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t need any more food, but I figured I’d support him by picking up a couple dozen smoked wings and dropping them off at a friend’s house. Waiting for my order, I noticed that City Bird and Pepp & Dolores had recently reopened for carryout, too. Things were starting to percolate, but no one knew what the future held. Maybe when this is published in July, we’ll have a better idea. 

Driving home, I thought of Jose Salazar packing up those free dinners, of Richard Stewart staring out at his farmland and wondering what comes next, of Andrea Siefring-Robbins and Scott Robbins holding onto hope as they made batches of cheddar in Evanston. While my mood was still a little gloomy, my thoughts quickly turned to how I was happy that I moved back here. After talking to all of these people, I truly believed the best was yet to come. That we would find our groove again. That the Ohio Valley would be the success story we always hoped it would be.