From cocktails to toilet paper: Restaurants, bars, serve as markets during COVID-19

Hannah Starr has been Googling "How do grocery stores make a profit?" lately.

It's part of yet another turn for the co-owner of Haywood Common, who ran the Belly Up Food Truck with her husband Rob Starr before they opened their West Asheville restaurant in 2018.

Now, the seasonally focused neighborhood eatery serves as a market providing a variety of takeout meals, plus staples including flour, preserves, eggs and even toilet paper.

"The market itself gives people the opportunity to not have to go into a larger grocery store," Hannah Starr explained.

It's a trend playing out throughout the city: Where once there were cocktails and small plates now are stacks of toilet paper and sometimes yeast, another item panic buyers have stripped from grocery store shelves.

Some restaurant owners say they've used this time to figure out how to sustain themselves should the pandemic drag on, while serving diners who see local food as an important part of their lives.

"It sounded like a great way to keep connected with the community, and also do what we love," said veteran bar owner Charlie Hodge, who has shifted his cocktail bar and restaurant Sovereign Remedies into a bodega.

Hodge's restaurant was lovingly described by the New York Times as a lush hideaway serving dishes of foraged miner’s lettuce, mushrooms and wildflowers.

Now Hodge chuckles over the toilet paper stacked where customers used to sip botanically influenced cocktails.

"I think it's kind of silly," he said.

But the toilet paper serves the community, just like the yeast he's portioned out from the restaurant-sized parcels his food purveyor brings.

It also serves as a sort of place holder, a thing to help stay afloat along until the customers come back. 

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"I don't think everyone (who's doing this) is making money," Hodge said. "We're just keeping things moving and trying not to start it all up again from nothing."

Hodge has seen a lot in his quarter century running acclaimed bars from Portland to Asheville.  

"You adapt or die," he said. "But man, this is so far away from anything we could have possibly imagined, but we're all in this together. The world might change, but we'll be here and we'll be fine."

From pastries to panko

At The Rhu, the Lexington Avenue bakery companion to John Fleer's hyper-local Rhubarb, the James Beard nominated chef always intended his bakery to serve as a small market. 

"And it just veered toward pastry and coffee and sandwiches, and away from the pantry piece," he said. 

But no longer. Now there are needful pantry things — baking soda, panko bread crumbs, table salt — sitting alongside the gift basket-worthy preserves and glossy cookbooks.

"We can get most everything, including toilet paper," the former Blackberry Farm chef said. "If you ask, we can take care of it."

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Fleer now is part chef, part grocer, selling lamb steaks and stuffed whole snapper to cook at home.

He thought customers would prefer heat-and-eat food, but that hasn't been the case.

Pandemics, as it turns out, are good for honing new skills.

"With the meal kits, it's 'OK, I don't have to do all the parts of putting dinner on the table, but I can sear and roast and saute these things that have been provided for me, and then put it on a plate,'" Fleer said. 

A taste of Spain at home

Less than 400 feet south on Lexington Avenue, La Bodega by Cúrate operates out of the Button & Co. Bagels storefront, serving up what James Beard Best Chef Southeast finalist Katie Button calls "a prepared-foods version of Cúrate."

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Even Cúrate, considered by Food & Wine magazine one of the "40 Most Important Restaurants of the Past 40 Years," sells toilet paper in a pandemic. 

But the focus is on sending the flavors of the popular tapas restaurant home. 

"Having a shop where we can sell Spanish specialty foods is something we've wanted to do for a while but we pushed it to the back burner like everything else," Button said. 

Cúrate and Button & Co. Bagels closed temporarily in mid-March, with La Bodega by Cúrate launching May 5 with meal kits, semi-prepared restaurant favorites, pantry staples, vermouth and more. 

The Saturday before Mother's Day, the bodega served about 100 households via pickup and delivery. Button figures those numbers were bolstered by bottled up customer excitement.

Still, on a normal pre-Mother's Day Saturday, the restaurant can see upward of 800 diners.

"It will never replace our restaurant dining room, but if we can get this going now, and keep it going when we are ready to open, it can help supplement any reduced occupancy and uncertainty about the future this next year brings," Button said. 

This is a way to keep the business running on a lower gear to help Cúrate roll into the next phase, whenever that comes. 

And the market? That's only going to grow.

"Offering prepared foods, selling wine, all of that is something we don't want to make go away, and now we can put the energy we need to behind it," Button said.

Haywood Common's Hannah Starr also said her market will stick around.

Picking out signature sauces to bottle and has opened up a whole new stream of revenue, and that's one silver lining in a time when restaurant owners have to think on their feet, she said. 

"It's really opened our eyes, and it's making us figure out what our branding is, and what we can do," she said. 

How to try the markets

La Bodega by Cúrate

Hours: Offering pickup and delivery Tuesday-Sunday, 11:30 a.m.- 6 p.m. Pickup at 32 S. Lexington Ave.

Inventory: Spanish influenced meal kits. Prepared foods, such as chicken croquettes and quarts of gazpacho. Wine, beer, signature cider, vermouth and sherry. Desserts and pantry items. 

"We're planning to add more home cooking kits, like a paella kit that comes with rice and sofrito and stock and instructions so you can have that experience at home," said Button.

Also: Button & Co. bagels will come back eventually, but you can't have them just yet.

How to order: https://www.toasttab.com/bodega-by-curate/v3

Sovereign Remedies Bodega

Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Inventory: A spirited assortment of things, from cloth masks to local eggs. Find beer and wine, plus house-crafted cocktail mixers.

Dry goods including flour and yeast, plus handmade items from staff, all created to help supplement the income of people who need it most.

"Some employees made stuff and said 'Just put it in a fund for someone who needs it more,'" said Hodge. 

Local food, including bread from OWL Bakery, fresh-made pasta from Chiesa in Montford, and locally made dumplings. 

How to order: Wear a mask and stop by the store, 29 N. Market St. 

The Rhu

Hours: Open Saturdays and Sundays 1-5 p.m. to shop, or order ahead to pick up at https://app.upserve.com/s/rhu-asheville. 

Where: 10 S. Lexington Ave.

Inventory: Executive pastry chef Kaley Laird has prepared sourdough kits with her own starter and flour, with instructions on how to nurture the sourdough starter.

Dry Ridge farm eggs, Gaining Ground Farm produce, Farm to Home Milk, pantry staples, cooking and cocktail equipment, prepared meals and meal kits, plus beer and wine. Also: cocktail mixes, gift items and Spicewalla spices. 

Haywood Common

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.- 3 p.m.

Inventory: Rice and quinoa, bottled sauces, preserves and pickles. Local meats, deli items and cheeses. Milk, produce, yogurt, flowers. Locally baked breads, biscuits, desserts. Wine, beer, mixers. 

Prepared meals include snacks, salads, soups and sandwiches made to order. Take-home family meals include everything from sausage pappardelle to fried-shrimp poke.

How to order: https://www.toasttab.com/haywood-common/v3. Pick up at 507 Haywood Road. 

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Mackensy Lunsford has lived in Asheville for more than 20 years, and has been a staff writer for the Asheville Citizen Times since 2012. Lunsford is a former professional line cook and one-time restaurant owner.

Reach me:mlunsford@citizentimes.com.

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