NYC Restaurant Duo Launches Safe Eats To Navigate COVID-19 Safety Guidelines

Safe Eats NYC
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A pair of concerned Manhattan restaurant owners have teamed to help the industry get answers that in many cases have been difficult or impossible to procure as they reopen their eateries. Answering the call of restaurant owners and consumers during this pandemic, Safe Eats is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization, created to support the restaurant industry by providing access to health and safety best practices streamlined into one place, live clinical support, a reopening model and a trustmark-backed media campaign to promote and validate the work its members are undertaking to keep everyone safe.

The goal of Safe Eats is twofold; restaurateurs are provided the ultimate safety playbook along with live clinical support, and consumers are assured that their favorite restaurants are committed to public safety. Early participants in the Safe Eats program include Boqueria, Rosemary’s, Loring Place, Bobo, Claudette, Roey’s, Delicious Hospitality’s Charlie Bird, Legacy Records, Pasquale Jones, Reverence and more.

Within their restaurant toolkit, Safe Eats members will be linked with Zero Hour Health and their health and safety app called Zedic that provides a single source for the latest guidelines, 24/7 access to live clinical support and oversight of employee health checks, and a continuously updated COVID-19 operator manual. Additional member benefits include: a Safe Eats certification, a member’s website for collaboration, preferred pricing for PPE, and a Safe Eats trustmark/window decal signifying their commitment to public safety.

By committing to the Safe Eats pledge and displaying the SE certification mark, restaurants will be able to show that they are taking the necessary precautions to ensure the utmost health and safety of their customers and staff. Safe Eats will require its members to publicly display their pledge poster, window sticker and re-certify their compliance to SE standards on a monthly basis. This will ensure Safe Eats’ mission in helping restaurants provide dining experiences that are safe — and feel safe — for everyone.

Safe Eats was founded by restaurant owners Carlos Suarez of Bobo, Rosemary’s, Claudette and Roey’s, and Yann de Rochefort, founder of Boqueria restaurants (DC, Chicago, New York), along with Rachel Kornafel, VP of Marketing for Boqueria, restaurant business coach and advisor Nandu Awatramani, Roslyn Stone, COO of Zero Hour Health, the industry leader in managing restaurant health incidents and Dan Pollock, Chief Product Officer for Zedic, an app which provides 24/7 medical support for the hospitality industry.

  • Day & Nite
  • AyrKing Mixstir
  • RAK Porcelain
  • T&S Brass Eversteel Pre-Rinse Units
  • BelGioioso Burrata
  • Atosa USA
  • Red Gold Sacramento
  • Texas Pete
  • Simplot Frozen Avocado
  • Inline Plastics Safe-T-Chef
  • Imperial Dade
  • McKee Foodservice
  • DAVO Sales Tax
  • RATIONAL USA

Additional Safe Eats counsel was provided by Lois Najarian O’Neill, Co-Founder of hospitality PR agency, The Door, as well as Melissa Gorman of brand strategy and design agency Love & War, who designed the trustmark and brand identity. Each have brought forth their distinct knowledge and experiences to craft solutions towards building a safe experience and future for the culinary industry.

“We saw the frustration of restaurateurs with constantly changing guidelines,” Suarez said. “There is incredible confusion over the restrictions as a result of the current pandemic with government officials sending out chaotic, mixed messages that are almost impossible to decipher. The work that Andrew Rigie and the Alliance as well as the State restaurant Association and a dozen plus agencies do is just amazing. But it was just too much to get through, so it dawned on us that there had to be a better way. Our heads were spinning and we thought how great it would be to find one source. With the help of Ben Leventhal of Resy, Lois at the Door and Zedic, we were able to build out a Covid operations manual.”

Safe Eats is charging members a $69 per month fee. “We are not making a penny on this,” said Suarez, “I just want to help the industry get restarted as quickly as possible. The fee should be rapid many times over if a restaurant uses the sticker to market their commitment to providing a safe environment for diners and restaurant staff. It’s about building a message through the confusion that these are the restaurants that are keeping the public safe.”

“Yann and I were both spending so much time trying to stay on top of all the latest Covid guidelines,” co-founder Suarez, continued in describing what led to the establishment of Safe Eats. “By last count we were monitoring over a dozen agencies. We were totally stressed about our ability to navigate our businesses through the health crisis and had a thought: What if we there was a single source for safety guidelines that we could rely on? How great would that be for us. How great would that be for our industry?”

Suarez’s next mission is for Open Table and Resy to add the Safe Eats certification to the restaurant listings on those web sites.

Suarez brings a diverse background to the Safe Eats launch. After growing up in a home with parents who were both accomplished cooks, he went on to study finance at Wharton. It wasn’t long before he returned to his passion for food. His return to industry came with a staff position at Blue Fin in New York’s Times Square. That iconic eatery was owned by the legendary Steve Hanson.

“Only in the restaurant business could you go from making $10 an hour working for someone to having them as a partner in your own restaurant,” Suarez quipped.

He was slated to team with Hanson to open a NYC restaurant that is now on hold in response to the pandemic.

  • Red Gold Sacramento
  • Simplot Frozen Avocado
  • RAK Porcelain
  • Imperial Dade
  • AyrKing Mixstir
  • Atosa USA
  • BelGioioso Burrata
  • DAVO Sales Tax
  • T&S Brass Eversteel Pre-Rinse Units
  • Day & Nite
  • Texas Pete
  • McKee Foodservice
  • RATIONAL USA
  • Inline Plastics Safe-T-Chef