Come for the food businesses, stay for the connections
A data-based, true story about the power of digital community
I’m sharing this story, not to sing my own praises as co-founder of the group discussed, but rather as a data-backed example of what authentic connection and interaction in positive digital spaces can do. If you have examples of uplifiting digital communities you’d like to see featured in Digital Hope, drop links in the comments. I can’t wait to showcase more!
“I have felt a little useless when I see how restaurants have been impacted by COVID. The group gives me a sense that I can do SOMETHING.” -Culinary Distancing COS member
In the early days of COVID-19, Culinary Distancing COS was conceived as a safe, uplifting digital space (no business-bashing, negative or divisive posts allowed) to show community support for the food and drink industry during on-site dining shutdowns. The concept was simple: connect eaters and drinkers with businesses, post photos of where and what members were eating and drinking; shout-out beloved spots they wanted to see survive the downturn; and tell stories of great experiences with businesses adapting to ever-changing conditions. But members connected and collaborated in exciting, innovative, and unexpected ways.
Businesses were encouraged to share specials and new, pandemic-adapted offerings (such as take-and-bake meal kits or family-style meals), plus let the community know how to help their industry survive and thrive. Evolving every day in response to changing policies, guidelines and customer concerns, food and drink businesses sought advice from group members on contactless pickup procedures, customer-preferred COVID safety measures and to discover whether there was demand for delivery from spots that had prior never offered it.
Before the pandemic, business owner Mark Bryant of Mark Anthony’s Pretzels sold exclusively to restaurants wholesale, but lost his entire client list inside of a day when shuttered or suffering eateries cancelled their regular orders with him. His business was effectively dead. After lamenting that for a few days, Bryant found the will to try his hand at retail sales, personally driving and delivering $7/dozen pretzel bags to anyone in metro Colorado Springs. He posted about that on his own Facebook business page, but a Culinary Distancing COS member saw and reposted it to the group. That post was met with a barrage of comments as customer after customer raved about the doughy, golden brown and buttery pretzels plus the beer cheese and honey mustard dips.
Bryant expected six or seven orders maybe to come from his post; instead 50 orders flooded in, initially overwhelming the one-man operation, but eventually buoying the business enough to hire staff and establish a retail storefront. He says he would not be in business if it weren’t for support he received from the Culinary Distancing COS community. “That is the thing that started the ball moving.”
Bryant’s success is also the thing that got group founders interested in assessing the impact of this online community space.
Power to the people
A survey of 400 members and 40 food-and-drink businesses was conducted from mid-December 2020 to mid-January 2021.1 The survey revealed that 99-percent of members of Culinary Distancing COS were more informed about the local food and drink industry because of the group. Eighty-nine-percent felt more invested in that community, and 85-percent reported supporting different restaurants now than they did before joining. More than half discovered a place that has since become a go-to favorite.
“This group reminds me that we all care about our local economy and want to help it survive,” one group member wrote in the survey. “With a little bit of information, we can make better decisions.”
Around one-third of group members engaged with content on a daily basis, forming connections with other members and often finding comfort in the shared experience: a sense of kinship, of place, of purpose.
“It’s been interesting to interact with other community members — even if it started surrounding food, because it seemed to often lead elsewhere (friendship, hope, encouragement),” a group member responded to the survey.
Meanwhile, more than three-fourths of business owners say the group was helpful to their business during the pandemic while also having a positive emotional impact on them personally.
“By learning so many people saw restaurants as vital businesses to support and protect, I realized we were not alone,” says owner of downtown Italian staple Red Gravy, Eric Brenner. “My impulse to give back to the community and those in need was reciprocated many times over.”
Early in the pandemic, Brenner started his own initiative, Meals to Heal, to feed frontline healthcare workers and keep staff employed. Aside from the direct impact of avoiding pandemic layoffs and showing love in the form of food to those caring for COVID patients, it was an easily replicable model other eateries could follow. Patrons could decide where the need in their community is greatest, raise money, and choose a neighborhood restaurant to make the food.
Both Brenner and the assembled Culinary Distancing COS force were responding creatively in real-time to local needs with a speed, nimbleness and community-wide scope established institutions and government agencies couldn’t match. It took nearly six months to create official outdoor dining spaces in the area. Financial aid was available, but for little mom-and-pops sprinkled all over the city — some with language barriers and/or cultural sensitivities — jumping through unfamiliar hoops while running a business, pivoting on a daily basis and worrying about how to keep themselves, their families, their employees and their customers safe was an overwhelming undertaking. Some were simply unaware of those relief programs or didn’t know how to apply for them, responses to the owner survey revealed.
But from day one of the State order to close shops for sit-down services Culinary Distancing COS members began providing support to a cross-section of businesses in big, small, uniquely personal and broadly collaborative ways. The group found an immediate foothold, a niche audience of food-and-drink enthusiasts and industry folks determined to weather the pandemic together.
Two-thirds of business owners say they saw a financial impact from the group and roughly half say the group helped them pivot or adapt their business to survive and thrive.
Supporting local food and drink businesses
The most common way Culinary Distancing Group members supported their local food and drink scene was by mindfully patronizing struggling businesses. Through posts by owners and industry professionals, group members learned about the challenges businesses were facing and the ever-changing policies and procedures businesses were subject to.
“We always share the various ways in which we have strived to meet the highest standards of every element of new mandates,” Red Gravy’s Brenner says. “The group appreciated the effort to be up to the moment in all of the changing facets of mitigation.”
Indeed, forty percent of members say they learned about the wider industry by participating in the group.
“Seeing the struggles of local restaurant and bar owners and how many have adapted has been eye-opening and inspires me to support local as often as possible,” one survey respondent wrote.
Group members rallied around businesses that openly asked for help. “It’s been important to know how we can help and who needs a little extra support,” a group member wrote. “Feels good to respond.” Yet less than a quarter of business owners surveyed asked for community help. (A key takeaway from the study is that vulnerability on the part of business owners turns transactions into relationships; transforming customers into partners/friends who feel personally invested in the business.)
The passionate support group members showed to local food and drink businesses didn’t spring from pity, it came from conscious choices to play a role in helping save the industry. And people adopted other socially conscious initiatives such as supporting minority-run outfits. Fifty-three percent of group members said they have or intended to support a BIPOC-owned food or drink business with 47 percent saying they have or intended to support a woman-owned business in the industry.
The restaurants felt the love: “It can easily seem like we’re being forgotten and then someone will post something about one of our restaurants and it helps you see how supportive everyone wants to be to keep us all open,” one owner wrote. Another said: “Feeling supported creates synergy and motivation to keep going.”
Getting creative
Beyond sharing recommendations, photos and stories about great businesses, group members mobilized and organized to support local food and drink spots in more innovative ways. One member sought to coordinate a food truck visit to their area, inquiring how many participants they’d need to make it worthwhile. The trucks, with a mobile advantage over brick-and-mortar outfits, responded. According to one food truck owner: invitations from group members to serve in their neighborhoods became a “huge” and “profitable shift in our business model.”
Early in the shutdown, when many eateries were suddenly sitting on excess inventory they couldn’t sell, another group member organized a to-go order for a combined group of neighbors who gave the restaurant free reign to feed them whatever item they most needed to sell before it became waste. She shared the experience, suggesting other group members follow suit. In yet another instance, a group member asked where to find Pączki, a Polish pastry, for Fat Tuesday. That question turned into discovering that a struggling bakery, reduced to serving wholesale clients only, would be willing to specially make a bulk order. So the group member organized the purchase of at least 18 dozen Packzi, introducing others to the bakery and the pastry in the process.
There for each other
Culinary Distancing COS proved that group members weren’t just participating to support restaurants; they were looking out for one another other as well.
They looked for ways to protect immunocompromised individuals and maximize community safety by collaborating on a “Safe Food/Drink Take-Out and Delivery” guide. Long before official institutions established clear safety protocols, group dialogue resulted in a free, printable one-sheet spelling out customer expectations from businesses (“We appreciate it when you answer our questions about your safety processes”.) But the guide wasn’t a one-sided list of requirements for food and drink businesses. It included customer pledges to businesses as well (“We gratefully acknowledge that frontline workers assume additional risk and life stress to continue serving customers.” And “We will be patient with staff who have had to learn so many new procedures so quickly”).
Members helped each other find everything from bags of flour to gluten-free treats to Coca-Cola cakes to vegan delivery options; some restaurants even sold toilet paper when that became a scarce commodity in grocery stores. Members also crowdsourced ideas for making pandemic birthdays, anniversaries and other occasions special. Business owners joined in by offering extra touches to make these socially isolated milestones more cheery.
During the holiday season a member posted: “I’m alone, are there any places selling small Thanksgiving meals.” The first commenter replied: “I would love to bring you a plate on Thanksgiving day.” Others soon chimed in with the same offer, while someone else proposed an “orphan Thanksgiving Zoom date.” Here were people who’d never met in person, true strangers during a time when folks were afraid to even be near one another for fear of catching the virus, offering to cook, deliver food and safely socialize. It was genuine human connection, an exchange of care and generosity.
Some commented to affirm the moment: “These posts warm my heart. If everyone could be this kind we would all be in a better place.” Another wrote: “Lots of great people out there, what a refreshing post. I will offer to drop a meal as well but my wife would confirm my innate ability to always burn the bird.”
Which brings us to humor: Plenty was on display as community members tried to laugh their way out of despondency and cheer one another up, at turns. Pies and Grinders got a shout-out from one group member who raved about their pizza, prefacing she was a tough critic, from New Jersey. The post blew up as people began connecting over their regional roots. “Love seeing all these Jersey peeps coming out of the woodwork!” one wrote, and the conversation turned to all kinds of other Jersey-proud items in the area. It showed that posts weren’t single-topic stagnant, but dynamic. With active (and amused) engagement, other businesses would often end up highlighted peripherally inside of a post that didn’t even begin as relevant to them.
Be positive
It should be noted that the insistence on positivity captures one key reason why Culinary Distancing COS proved successful: there was an appetite for online connection free from ubiquitous trolls. Thirty percent of surveyed group members selected “having a safe and positive space to connect with people” as one of the things they liked most about the group. “Very much appreciate that this isn't a place for negative reviews or critiques. The goal is to lift up a struggling industry,” one group member wrote. “I love that it stays positive,” another said. “It's all about support so you can be certain negativity will stay away. People have Yelp for that.” And yet another: “I enjoy seeing people connecting and sharing positivity when everything else in the world is just so, so bleak. This reminds me that we're all in this together.”
Sustaining positivity required constant monitoring and discussion to determine how to respond to grey-area posts, remove those that broke group rules, warn (and, when necessary, remove) violating members, repost and reaffirm the group’s mission for newcomers, and reluctantly play peacemakers when certain posts devolved into unconstructive realms.
“Overall I really like that there’s a ban on bashing local businesses,” a business owner responded to the survey. “I get enough DMs from people on a daily basis trashing mine or one of my friends’ businesses on some other foodie platform. It’s demotivating and emotionally taxing on us as owners to hear such negativity about our restaurants and our friends’ restaurants.”
In the absence of internet trolls, members piggybacked on positivity, championing good ideas and heartfelt expressions of joy, gratitude, and enthusiasm. The survey revealed that positivity, or more so benevolence of spirit, is contagious. Many restaurant owners didn’t just take time to promote their own offerings, they shared suggestions for their favorite spots, celebrating their colleagues and cohorts.
“Monse’s made it a point to highlight other businesses that we knew were struggling,” says Tim Hines, co-owner of Monse’s Taste of El Salvador. “A lot of them weren’t actively promoting themselves, I think people feel hesitant sometimes because they feel like they’re begging. So it’s great when other businesses highlight them instead.
According to the survey results, the most appealing and powerful content in the group arose organically through real, human interactions in an atmosphere devoid of pesky algorithm-delivered content.
There’s a disruptive element inherent to this. People didn’t feel marketed to in a conventional way, despite hearing directly from business owners; rather, the owners often let the group in behind the scenes, detailing what life was like on the other side of the equation. Their transparency created trust and invited a chance for compassion and empathy. Group members found ways to tangibly help: for example, driving to come pick up food themselves instead of using third-party delivery platforms that charge exorbitant fees to restaurants, which many business owners endured simply to keep their employees working vs. idle.
Resilience and hope; key findings and takeaways
Although it’s impossible to know the true, full impact the Culinary Distancing COS group had on businesses, a Social Return on Investment (SROI) study conducted by The Colorado Institute for Social Impact (CI4SI) provides expert insight. SROI is the measurement, in a language of dollars and cents, of the value of an organization’s efforts to alleviate a social, environmental or community issues.
“This being the first ever Social Return on Investment (SROI) study being done on a pandemic business solution, the findings are incredible” says Stacey Burns, CI4SI’s Co-Founder. “We found that above all, when community comes together around a positive, well-intended, trustworthy effort, amazing things can happen.”
So how incredible are the findings? CI4SI’s SROI Study determined that total contributions of the group toward strengthening the community were nearly $1.1 million.
“We compute realistic calculations, based on trusted, validated sources and best practices,” says Burns. “We pride ourselves in providing verifiable and transparent methodologies that generate realistic estimations of real social value. CI4SI calculations are credible and precise — and conservative. We won’t overreach.”
For example, that total SROI number is based partly on a projection of each group member dining out only two times a year. Group posts and survey responses, however, indicate many members actually supported restaurants by dining out far more often. “We used to get two meals from HelloFresh every week,“ one group member reported, “but once I joined the Facebook group, we dropped the HelloFresh and I started picking up from local restaurants twice a week.” Another member, after receiving their $600 federal stimulus check, posted “I am going to spend it all on food from local restaurants. $20 a day for 30 days.”
CI4SI reports that, by participating in the group, members and owners alike experienced the benefits of generosity, continued to enjoy food and drink from local businesses and built a community around the local food and drink industry. Members also accessed pandemic-related information they trusted. (A fascinating finding since a food-related community isn’t an obvious target audience for public health messages.)
According to CI4SI, the value of these supportive behaviors are not limited to times of crisis, the group is likely to provide numerous continued benefits for years to come. Ninety-nine percent of group members surveyed say they’re likely to continue participating in the group, “which demonstrates that this was not only a solution during a pandemic, but has created actual behavior change for a community,” Burns says.
“[T]his is a powerful story of two people wanting to bring a community together around food and beverage during a pandemic, and changing the community’s trajectory financially, emotionally, and digitally for the foreseeable future.”
We may be farther apart in an ongoing pandemic world, but a digital place to come together with purpose can bring us closer than before.
NOTE: This week’s newsletter is compiled, in part, from the Pikes Peak Workforce Center’s digital press kit on Culinary Distancing COS. To read background materials, reports, profiles, and a full feature story, visit www.ppwfc.org/CulinaryDistancingCOS.
Also from Lauren M. Hug — Digital Kindness: Being Human in a Hyper-Connected World and COMING SOON Digital Grace: Embracing Benevolence in an Outraged World.
Funding for this study (and the social return on investment study mentioned later) was made possible by the Pikes Peak Regional Retail and Hospitality Sector Partnership, convened by the Pikes Peak Workforce Center. The funding originated through Lives Empowered, an initiative to bring together retail businesses interested in working collaboratively to increase economic mobility for frontline workers across Colorado and contribute to a strong economy. Lives Empowered is made possible by a $4.1 million grant from Walmart to the Colorado Workforce Development Council.