WATCH: Will Restaurants Survive?
Bay Area Book Festival #UNBOUND Presents Soleil Ho, Saru Jayaraman, and Caleb Zigas, Moderated by Davia Nelson
Our neighborhood eateries and watering holes are more than places to gather and break bread. For patrons, they’re cornerstones of community life. And for staff, they’re a second home and a labor of love. But the public health risk from COVID-19 is radically reshaping the dining-out landscape in America, with thousands of restaurants forced to close permanently. And those that stay open face a devastating new normal in an industry that’s always been notoriously tough. In a new world of takeout-only and meal delivery, employees who were already living paycheck-to-paycheck are risking their health in order to serve customers. Immigrant and undocumented industry workers—a significant portion of the restaurant workforce—face an especially precarious reality. How do we support the people who keep us fed?
Saru Jayaraman is president of One Fair Wage, an organization fighting for higher wages for tipped workers, many of them women of color. She’s joined by Caleb Zigas of La Cocina, an organization dedicated to creating equity in business ownership for women, immigrants, and people of color in the restaurant industry, and Soleil Ho, Restaurant Critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and former co-host of the Racist Sandwich podcast. Moderated by Davia Nelson, half (with her sister Nikki Silva) of the Peabody Award-winning public radio producer duo The Kitchen Sisters, whose series include NPR’s “Hidden Kitchens.”
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Soleil Ho, San Francisco Chronicle
Saru Jayaraman, Bite Back
Caleb Zigas, We Are La Cocina: Recipes in Pursuit of the American Dream
Davia Nelson, The Kitchen Sisters
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The Bay Area Book Festival is a world-class annual literary celebration in Downtown Berkeley, attracting 25,000 attendees and featuring 250 authors in 130 programs. #UNBOUND, the year-round virtual branch of the Festival’s celebrated programming, amplifies bestselling and emerging voices across all genres, with a focus on social justice and diversity. We believe that books, and smart conversations about them, build bridges.
Check http://www.baybookfest.org/unbound for additional episodes and information on our Bay Area Book Festival #UNBOUND virtual series.
