Tampa’s Cass St. Deli just got a big boost from James Beard Winner Chef Edward Lee, and local laid off restaurant and hospitality workers are getting a lot of help as a result.
As part of the Lee Initiative’s Restaurant Workers Relief Program—which recognized Cass St. Deli’s Chef Suzanne Crouch (pictured above) as a leading woman in the Tampa Bay culinary scene—the New York-style Jewish deli is being infused with funds and being asked to feed hospitality workers in need for three weeks starting Saturday, April 18.
The undisclosed amount of grant money, made possible through a Lee Initiative partnership with Maker’s Mark, allows Crouch to hire back five of eight furloughed employees. It also provides meals to laid off hospitality workers every night from 5 p.m.-7 p.m., for 21 days straight. Crouch told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that she expects to serve approximately 250 people a night, for a total of about 5,250 meals.
“It’s actually completely fulfilling,” Crouch said of the idea of making that many meals after a full day of slinging Cass St. Deli’s modified menu, which includes its own in-house lunch box program which finds locals donating food to front line medical workers.
“This provides job security for me and my staff, and knowing that I can provide for my community is amazing.”
All laid off hospitality and restaurant workers have to do to get a free meal is show a pay stub, and they’re encouraged to come back for a meal every night. Crouch plans on having three different menus for each week of the Workers Relief Program, and thinks that roast chicken, street potatoes and cabbage could be up first.
The funds are a boon for Cass St. Deli—located at 1331 W. Cass St.—which was acquired by Blind Tiger in January. The road in front of the deli’s parking lot has been under construction for months, but Crouch says she’s learned to embrace the challenges and turn them into positives in the face of the coronavirus pandemic that’s crippling the restaurant industry worldwide.
“When this first started, I was really really stressed out, and I was frazzled because there were a lot of things happening to a lot of people all at once,” Crouch told CL.
But for her, a chef’s job is to always be on her toes and coming up with solutions to problems. She said that she’s been fortunate to have a supportive staff plus customers who travel through NoHo back alleys to get their food
“So yeah, I was nervous and I was scared at first, but now I'm just doing what I always did, and that’s making feel-good food,” she said. “We have to make people feel good.”
The Restaurant Workers Relief program is active in 15 cities, and Cass St. Deli is the only Tampa restaurant chosen by Maker’s Mark and the Lee Initiative.
The relief effort’s website says that dinners are offered on a first-come, first-serve basis. There’s also a limit of one package per person unless there is an emergency situation. Essential supplies—think toilet paper and paper towels—will also be on hand.
A map and detailed instructions regarding pickup in accordance with CDC guidelines surrounding social distancing is on the way, and if Tampeños donate more money to the initiative, then it can live even longer than the three weeks it's scheduled to.
“We will limit how much any one person can take of these supplies, but they will be handed out free to those in need,” the Lee Initiative wrote. “We will continue to offer this program until we can no longer financially support the program.”
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This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2020.