Two thousand nine hundred seventy-nine restaurants did not go out of business in Rhode Island this week.
This bit of news from restaurant row may come as a surprise given the tone of the reporting of food news of late.
While that is not an exact figure – the number is actually larger, as it does not include such establishments as doughnut shops, which are sometimes referred to as restaurants – it flies in the face of most of the reporting on food service so far this year. The idea of paying tribute to restaurants closing their doors is nothing new. A look in the archives of this column shows, for example, when the restaurant Siena underwent a makeover on Federal Hill in January 2013, I wrote, “The bistro address at 238 Atwells Ave. has seen other changes through the years going back to when the DiGiglio family operated a butcher shop there ... followed into the early years of the Providence restaurant boom by L’Epicureo, which was owned by Rozann (DiGiglio) and Tom Buckner. In the early 2000s, the Buckners moved downtown, making way for Siena, which quickly established itself as a mainstay on the Hill’s Restaurant Row.”
Absent, however, was the handwringing that overshadows such writing today. Hopefully, the narrative will soon reflect the resilience of those who continue to create new, exciting and innovative ways to feed us.
Along those lines, it was announced at the end of Providence Restaurant Weeks that Kevin Gaudreau, the successful proprietor of KG Kitchen Bar in Providence, has acquired the Jamestown restaurant Simpatico. Gaudreau’s team will get to work on a makeover and intend to reopen in the spring. The restaurant will undergo a name change honoring the historic tree that has graced the property for decades. It will be known as Beech.
Gov. Daniel J. McKee was a guest on my daily radio program in late January. Although our discussion was not food-centric, we got around to talking about food service.
I asked the governor about an industry-specific issue. There is no food processing facility in Rhode Island that is certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There is a small butcher shop-type operation in Johnston that is federally licensed but could not possibly handle the volume from the farms in the state to process meat. There was talk several years ago about building such a facility in Portsmouth, but neighbors protested. McKee said while there are no plans in the works for a plant that would be licensed to process and inspect meat, there is a discussion underway to establish a facility that would handle seafood. The governor was pleased to be able to include that in the relating of his “calamari comeback.”
The Greater Newport Chamber of Commerce has an annual drive known as “Ton of Love.” The idea is to have local folks contribute 2,000 pounds of food to the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Newport during the month of February. This is not a heavy lift during the holidays, but the center tends to be out of sight and out of mind to the public the rest of the year. The center director, Heather Strout, talked with me about the hospitality industry in Newport and brought into sharp focus an aspect of the troubles it is facing.
Restaurant workers continue to struggle. Quite frankly, the industry is only beginning to recognize it has not done as well as it should sustain the people on whom the day-to-day business runs. Ironically, many people who work with food must come to the food pantry to live. They have more opportunities now with job openings everywhere but may be at a disadvantage to apply and interview due to a lack of hygiene products – soap, shampoo, toothpaste. I proposed that hospitality business owners, particularly innkeepers and hoteliers, are in a unique position to contribute such items – the ones we all take home when traveling. Contact Strout at the MLK Center in Newport at 401-846-4828 or mlkccenter.org.
Bruce Newbury’s radio show and podcast, “Dining Out with Bruce Newbury,” is broadcast on WADK 1540 AM and several radio stations throughout New England. Email him at Bruce@BruceNewbury.com.
