‘Our Souls Are Going to Yearn For Something’
A Q&A with Vinegar Hill House’s Jean Adamson on how she plans to save her restaurant.
Craving comfort.
Photos courtesy of @vinegarhillhouse on Instagram
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, Bloomberg Opinion will be running a series of features by our columnists that consider the long-term consequences of the crisis. This column is part of a package on how the pandemic is altering the business of eating and drinking. For more, see Bobby Ghosh on destination dining, Amanda Little’s interview with the CEO of Beyond Meat, Adam Minter on how sanitized street food will hurt the world’s poor and James Gibney’s interview with Daniel Okrent and Wayne Curtis on the future of bars and cocktails.
Jean Adamson is the chef and co-owner of Vinegar Hill House, a 60-seat capacity restaurant in Brooklyn, New York. On March 15, Adamson closed the restaurant and laid off 41 full-time and part-time employees. She has since received a loan through the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program and aims to re-open in the fall, though with only a portion of her former staff. Adamson spoke to Bloomberg’s Romesh Ratnesar about her plans to reinvent her restaurant to survive the pandemic. An edited transcript of their conversation: