The owner of Flights restaurant in Los Gatos is making a pioneering move in social distancing by opening a “no-touch” grocery store in the parking lot of his business.
Alex Hult mapped out how he will launch a drive-through market, opening Monday at noon.
“On the back of this fence we’ll put all the things people can order,” Hult said. “They drive up here, put their order in, and we’ll bring it out to their trunk.”
A handful of other restaurants, coffee shops and breweries will offer their goods too. Through restaurant suppliers the drive-through market will offer things like produce and eggs – things local grocery stores may be running out of.
It’s about social distancing, but it’s also about survival.
“We have to pivot,” Hult said. “I had 250 employees and I had to let them all go.”
“The restaurant business is going to literally go under if we don’t get this resolved…somehow. It’s a very dire situation,” he said.
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Teri Hope owns the Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company, and she said they’ve all been blindsided.
“We’re all scared, all troubled,” she said. “But we have to have a sense of humanity.”
Even as they try to stay afloat themselves, these business owners have raised over $30,000 to help feed the needy.
Kimberly Somerfield, a mother of four from San Jose, said her supplies were running low when she got a free meal from the restaurant.
“I was trying to figure out how to make a meal with – I don’t have the noodles to make spaghetti,” she said. “How can I make this work? So it helps a lot.”
