Preparing meals for Everyone Eats Vermont Everyone Eats! has served more than 1,024,000 meals to residents impacted by COVID-19. The program helped save an estimated 500 restaurant jobs and provided consistent business to some 200 eateries when that industry was dealt a severe pandemic blow. The meals from chicken-and-leek pie with salad to chicken sausage with couscous and green beans even include local ingredients. Yet before the state legislature established the program in August 2020 with $5 million in CARES Act relief funds, a grassroots movement sprang up across the state to feed people in need. These early efforts swift business pivots that involved a collaboration of restaurants and nonprofits included ShiftMeals in Burlington, organized by the Skinny Pancake; a partnership in Vergennes among the city s Boys & Girls Club, Bar Antidote and Three Squares Café; and a southern Vermont initiative, Nourishing Artists, co
The best sellers on Honey Road's pandemic menu demonstrate the dueling dietary pulls of the last 15 months. The Eastern Mediterranean restaurant satisfied them both with bonus flamingo cocktail straws and a charming takeout window. According to chef/co-owner Cara Chigazola Tobin, customers couldn't get enough of the kale salad with tahini-yogurt dressing, cucumber, feta and crunchy quinoa. "I joked that we were going to survive the pandemic just selling kale salad," Chigazola Tobin said, hypothesizing that peopled craved something fresh and green.