Answering the call of restaurant owners and consumers during this pandemic, Safe Eats, a 501c3 non-profit organization, has launched to provide the industry’s most detailed safety guidelines and New York’s very first trustmark for safe dining, takeout and delivery. 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 access a 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 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. 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
Many articles, including a recent New York Times Critic’s Notebook, described the frustration of some restaurateurs in the constantly changing guidelines and restrictions as a result of the current pandemic, “government officials send out chaotic, mixed messages that are almost impossible to decipher.”
“Yann and I were both spending so much time trying to stay on top of all the latest Covid guidelines,” says co-founder Carlos Suarez, 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?”
