Chef José Andrés announced on Twitter that he has closed all of his Washington, D.C.-area restaurants due to the coronavirus public health crisis, saying “We are doing this for the right reasons. We need to take care of our employees, we need to take care of our guests, for their safety, more important, we need to take care of every one of you. We cannot just keep going like this is not going to happen to us.”
The World Central Kitchen founder and humanitarian said that all of his employees will be paid for the next two weeks and that a number of his locations would instead serve as “community kitchens,” where the public can pick up meals to take home. “These Community Kitchens will be part of World Central Kitchen efforts across the country in the coming days and weeks,” he tweeted. “Not for enjoyment … but a service for people in need of a plate of food during this emergency.”
Andrés said the move was necessary when in Europe “entire countries are shutting down, entire restaurants, entire systems.” He urged more in the U.S. to follow suit: “We need to be joining the NBA, need to be joining the closings of other venues that are doing the right call ahead of everybody. We cannot stay much longer with restaurants open or we will only be part of the problem, when we need to be part of the solution.”
Andrés’ World Central Kitchen organization has also fed cruise ship members that tested positive for COVID-19 and had been quarantined at the Oakland, California port through this past weekend, preparing meals of fish, jambalaya, and salads.
“This is a unique emergency situation, and WCK has experience preparing large numbers of meals in emergencies,” the organization said in a statement. “We are experts at rapidly setting up kitchens and establishing safe logistics processes to get food to where it needs to go—whether in the middle of a hurricane in the Bahamas, cholera outbreak in Mozambique, after an earthquake in Puerto Rico, or in this case, during a viral epidemic.”
The chef also suggested that supermarkets that are being rushed by the public open early for people over 60 only in order to protect their health. “In this moment, loving each other means staying away from each other,” he tweeted. “This is about We The People. Each of us has a responsibility to act for others, not just ourselves. We are all together in this fight … and we will win.”