As of today, April 2, Real Food is temporarily closed.
Real Food started with the mission to feed our customers like we feed our family and friends. We never knew the extent to which our customers would become our friends and family. You are our curmudgeonly grandfather with a heart of gold. You are our cousin with the best dirty jokes, you are our charming older brother who always has good advice and bourbon. Because you are friends we have tried to be as honest and transparent as possible during this unfathomable series of events. We can promise that will never change.
Yesterday Paul had an emergency proceedure to repair multiple tears in his retina. He's doing well and we are highly confident that he will not have permanent loss of vision. He cannot work for at least a week and possibly longer. Even before this emergency, we were operating on a day-to-day basis as the severity of the impact of the stay-at-home order and the virus itself continued to evolve.
Owning and operating Real Food is intense, exciting and, at times (especially the last few weeks), all-consuming. In addition to cooking we have been getting our kids settled into online school, learning about how to best support our employees and how to navigate the various SBA and government programs that may help us weather this storm financially.
Real Food is essentially a very successful lemonade stand. When there is money in the shoebox at the end of the day we open again the next day. We opened the business with no debt and have operated that way ever since. Having to close now will allow us to focus on how we can adapt our business to most importantly protect ourselves and our customers from contracting or spreading Covid-19 and secondarily plan for how to operate succesfully when we reach the other side of this, which we now know is likely months, not weeks.
We have incredible support from our community and family in this important work. The independent restaurant industry is a bunch of weirdos and misfits but we know how to put our heads down and get a job done. We are sharing resources and pulling toether like never before. We also have a crack team of lawyers, bankers and accountants guiding us every step of the way.
We look forward to the day when the line for sandwiches at Real Food is out the door, the patio is full and Paul is moving so fast your order is done before you can pay. The most important thing we can do until that time is to take care of each other and be good friends and neighbors and citizens.
Thank you for your unceasing support, encouragement and patronage for the last ten years, and especially the last ten days. We could not ask for more wonderful customers or a more supportive community.
Be well,
Paul and Sarah
