In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic immediately took a toll on Tarallucci e Vino. As soon as Mayor de Blasio ordered that all restaurants close except for take-out and delivery, we had to shut down four of our five locations and, most painfully, furlough 95 of our wonderful employees.

Two days after the mayor's announcement, we received a message from a friend, Adair Roberts, who was writing from her home in Toronto. She wanted to find a way to help Tarallucci e Vino and New York City healthcare workers on the frontlines of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Adair ordered 40 dinners from Tarallucci e Vino, which we delivered to the hardworking ER staff at NYU Langone.

Adair’s idea planted the seed for Feed the Frontlines NYC — an initiative to get more generous contributors like her to buy meals from restaurants around the city to be delivered to first responders. Following this, friends were inspired to launch their own Feed the Frontlines organizations across North America. Since then — and thanks in large part to the generosity of the Tarallucci e Vino community — Feed the Frontlines NYC has delivered over 140,000 nourishing meals to New Yorkers in need while enabling over 30 restaurants to keep their lights on and bring more than 130 employees back to work. 

As the Feed the Frontlines NYC team expanded to serve 63 hospitals across New York, we listened to forecasts of widespread, permanent restaurant closures and news that the city’s food-insecure population had swelled from an estimated 1.2 to 2 million people since the crisis began. It became increasingly clear that the next phase of the crisis was beginning — one that required more organizations, including restaurants, to help feed the growing ranks of New Yorkers experiencing food insecurity.

As we and other local, independent restaurants fight to re-emerge from the devastating health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we hope you’ll join us in our ongoing efforts to keep New Yorkers healthy, well fed, and employed.

To learn more and support Feed the Frontlines NYC, please visit the website to donate, follow @feedthefrontlines on Instagram and other social platforms and consider purchasing original merchandise to benefit the organization!