Repaying Kindness At Tucson’s Feast Restaurant

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Chef Doug Levy discovers a deep source of generosity and community support and returns the favor.

All Zagat stories are written by our editorial team. This story is presented by our partner Chase Sapphire®.

Despite the difficulties of the past year, restaurants were there for their communities. They’ve switched to take-out, serving food for key workers, and more. The Sapphire Supports Restaurants Contest awards $ 50,000 business grants from Chase Sapphire to 20 small restaurants across America to help restore the COVID-19 pandemic. Zagat Stories offers interviews with all recipients of our Sapphire Supports Restaurant Contests.

Doug Levy is the chief owner of Feast Restaurant in Tucson, Arizona.

At Feast, we turned 20 during the pandemic. We started out as a very small gourmet dish with eight tables. Tucson is a city for your car to get in. It’s not a really pedestrian-friendly place. The takeaway didn’t work that well because when people came into the restaurant all they wanted was to sit and eat. So we ran out of tables very quickly.

We were in a rickety old mall that was built in the 1950s at that point and we tore down a wall and moved into the room next door and doubled up. That was probably 2005 or something. We ran out of space again, so in 2010 I foolishly committed to a lifelong meal by buying an old Der Wienerschnitzel, demolishing it and building a 5,000-square-meter building in its place.

I had worked in upscale restaurants for many years before we originally opened and I thought if we make this take away we can close at 8pm and I’ll have a life and see my non-restaurant friends. But it turned out to be exactly what I did before, namely high-quality, fancy trouser food.

We had a tragic little terrace overlooking an ugly parking lot, and six years ago we fenced it in and started selling wine. That went really well. In 2019 we were named one of the 100 Best Wine Restaurants in the United States by Wine Enthusiast. Things felt good, and everything was blooming on roses and daffodils, and then on St. Patrick’s Day 2020, the Mayor of Tucson said, “We’re all closed tonight at 8am.”

Feast on Chef Owner Doug Levy in the restaurant’s attached wine shop. Photo: Shannon Dudley.

Fortunately, we had a long history of carryouts behind us. I am fortunate that a lot of the people who work here have been working here since then. We have people who have been here literally from day one and many more who have been here for over 15 years. So we were able to shoot relatively quickly. We already change our menu once a month so we’ve made a few quick revisions to make it friendlier to take away. We were at a take-away model for three days. We stayed with it until last May so we did strict execution for 14 months.

We are never completely closed. But it definitely felt like we were pretty closed. There were nights when it was said, “This is great. We did one night for $ 400. That means we only lost $ 3,500 today. ”It was definitely a challenge. But we found a couple of ways to make it work during the pandemic. We made takeaway from the start. Tucson, like I said, is a sprawling community, so we started doing something called hub deliveries, or satellite runs, and every week or two we would go to another community on the outskirts and people would be able to order. We did a lot of things in Cryovac bags, and people filled their freezers with meals so they could make something like cooking bags – curries and etouffes and picadillos.

We had weekly wine tastings, so we started doing Zoom wine tastings. Our wine merchant who ran Zoom tastings is a complete Luddite. So now there are two of us who do the Zoom tastings with him every week – one who just has to log him in. He’s a guy who won’t change. Now in a week from Saturday we will have our first personal tasting in 19 or 20 months.

One of the wines we offered happened to be from a former Tucsonan we know very well and he said, “Hey, how would you like me to join the Zoom tasting?” We said, “Great! ” He’s in the Willamette Valley now and he basically had a smartphone and was wandering the vineyard and winery during the presentation and people loved it. From that moment on, winemakers from Chile, Germany, France, South Africa, Spain and Italy came to us. They are friendly and willing to stay up until 1am. It’s not that difficult for Europeans. But the poor fellow from South Africa, that was overwhelmed, for sure.

Photo: Shannon Dudley.

What really kept us afloat during the pandemic are the so-called donation runs. At the beginning of the pandemic, one of our former employees who is a physician assistant at Tucson Medical Center was working on a neurological recovery ward. It turned out to be the first ward at Tucson Medical Center to be converted into a COVID ward. We were worried about him. He had been a waiter and host and a long-time employee of Feast. We wanted to show him a little solidarity. I also have another dear friend who worked with me in another restaurant and now works as a nurse in the emergency room there. So we said we wanted to send food there.

Over the past 20 years we’ve built an email list of 4,500 people. Now it’s probably more like 4,700, 4,800 people. So I sent an email and said, “Listen, here is the thing. We want to send food to the TMC employees. ”All hell broke loose there every day. The idea was that for every four meals a member donates, we would donate a fifth meal. Our guests and people in the community donated 240 meals and we donated another 60 meals and went to the hospital and distributed them.

It was so well received that we got more donations than food. We said, “Well, this isn’t the only hospital in town. Let’s go to Banner Health. ”We went to the one on the university and another one on the south side with another 300 meals. Again we had more meals left. So we rolled each donation group into the next. That summer there was a massive forest fire down here so we went to the fire department. We went to a number of animal shelters because people had to evacuate their homes and move their animals somewhere. We have been to several hospitals and clinics. We went to the VA hospital.

Then we went to homeless shelters and public housing for people transitioning from homelessness and went to mental health facilities and the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation and so on and so on. We have been doing this since the beginning of the pandemic. We continue. Last Saturday, I went to a program called Youth on Their Own, which helps teenagers who are affected by homelessness exit high school. We have been to retirement homes that are on a budget.

It will likely be another two years before business catches something similar to what we were doing before the pandemic. But we have managed to fill some of these gaps with donations. We have donated over 8,500 meals to various organizations across the community and will continue to do so. Now I can only taste until I get 10,000 meals.

Photo: Shannon Dudley.

Some of our guests were amazing. We have a wife who writes us a check for $ 100 every month. We have someone who sends us a check on a regular basis. There is no rhyme or reason for when or how much. The people were really remarkable. There have been some very touching experiences. The day after we all closed, I let a guest come in, bought a single chocolate chip cookie, and left a $ 250 tip for the crew.

I feel so much more committed to this community because it showed us that it is there for us. It’s intense. I know that by the grace of this fellowship we have still opened. While I am proud of what we have achieved and delighted with what we have achieved, I am just at the helm of this. Our guests and the Tucson community drive it.

The first thing I thought when I found out about winning the Sapphire Supports Restaurants Contest was, “OK, who am I donating this to? How am I going to use this money to bring people more meals? ”It’s hard to have a business dug out of it by people’s generosity and not feel like giving back. You have to make a contribution. That will happen with that money. Sure, we’ve spent well over $ 30,000 on equipment repairs and replacements in the past two years. Just because business goes out doesn’t mean repairs, gas or electricity bills, or mortgage payments will stop. But I feel like we navigated our way through all of these things through the friendliness of the Tucson people. My plan is to return this kindness.

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