Sam Marvin, owner of Echo & Rig and Pluck, has had to close all three of his restaurants during COVID-19
Pivot seems to be the mantra of the hour for independent restaurant owners and chefs trying to survive as the effects of the coronavirus pandemic subsist. Sam Marvin, chef and owner of Echo and Rig in Sacramento and Las Vegas, and Pluck in Carlsbad, Calif. is no different. Over the past six weeks, Marvin has been forced to close all three of his restaurants, although he was able to keep the butcher shop on the first floor of his Las Vegas restaurant and has focused his entire attention on pivoting that retail experience.
“Today in supermarkets, you maybe can’t find meat and chicken, so we’re lucky enough to haver that sliver of business still alive and promote,” Marvin said. “We’ve added a lot of to-go food in our butcher shop. We’re calling it grab and go: its already been cooked and is in tamper-proof packaging, so now when you come in to buy your steak, you can buy some carrots, or salad or bread.”
Although Marvin still has that one small aspect of his business running, he has had to lay off all but 15 of his employees and has worried about expenses like paying their vendors and making sure they don’t get evicted. But he still has hope for the future when his restaurants are able to reopen, and operations return to a new level of normalcy.
“We will have sanitizer on cook stations, and instead of five guys on the line we’ll have three guys on the line, lot of little changes for sure,” Marvin said. “We will require masks and take the temperature of our guests to make sure our employees are safe. It will be all sanitization and safety first, and everything else comes second.”
Check out our Zoom interview with Sam Marvin to learn more.
This is part of our Stories from the Front Lines series.
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