Anthony Caniglia - Au Courant

MARCH 19, 2020 © Right Here, Right Now.

“It hasn’t really set in yet. You know, we came in today and hung out and made some food and I still think “Oh, I gotta set up for service” and it’s like, never mind we’re closed. It’s kind of surreal, it hasn’t really…I haven’t really thought about it yet. I have a twin brother and he works at a restaurant too, and he’s going through the same thing and we’re both kind of like “what’s happening at your restaurant? What’s happening at yours”? 

Out of all of the other countries what I think about is how I’m glad we have clean water, we don’t have to go buy bottled water, it’s not something that bad. There’s not a famine right now. It’s easier to stay healthy with a balanced diet and clean water. Some people don’t even have that.

I feel bad for some of the new people that just came here in the past couple weeks because they’re not settled in yet. I feel bad for that, and I feel bad for the really small family restaurants that live week by week. They may only have a few hundred dollars in the restaurant account. There’s like 20 some restaurants last year that closed from slow business and now it’s gonna be…who knows?

We’re all in it together so stay positive, if you need to talk to somebody talk to somebody, it’s good to quarantine yourself at home but If you start to get depressed I think it’s important to reach out to your friends, especially in the industry, and see how they’re coping with it because relationships are the most important part, especially where we work. I love the people I work with and that’s why I cook. It’s the relationships first and then the food.

I hope that everybody can open sooner rather than later, and I hope that everybody supports all their local restaurants and none of them have to close because of this cause none of them deserve to close just because of this. Everybody in the industry, we’re all friends, we all go to each other's restaurants so I hope everybody makes it through after we can reopen.”