Strangely emotional : Newly vaccinated Bay Area restaurant workers talk mixed feelings
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Server Jariya Chankham disinfects a table between customers while working a shift at Farmhouse Kitchen in Oakland, Calif., on June 23, 2020. Recently, food and agriculture workers became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in the Bay Area.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Casey Rebecca Nunes, the general manager at Smitten Ice Cream in Oakland, had signed up for every possible notification to alert her about vaccine appointments. But it wasn’t Alameda County, where she works, or San Francisco County, where she lives, that came through with the critical alert instead, it was a bartender friend on Facebook.
Special Report
The Bay Area s best dishes of 2020
Even in a tough year, extraordinary food was available in the Bay Area. Here are critic Soleil Ho s favorites.
By Soleil Ho |
Updated: Dec. 24, 2020 9:37 AM
Even though 2020 has been absolute trash all around, the Bay Area’s food scene has continued on, though with the precarity of a flickering match in a storm. Amid the chaos and stress of weathering a pandemic in one of the hardest-hit countries in the world, opportunities to eat nourishing and soul-satisfying food have become even more precious. Life has changed for all of us, though I’m happy to report that extraordinary and accessible food and experiences are still out there in the Bay Area.
12 unexpectedly great things to come out of food in the disaster that is 2020
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The Naem Khao Tod (Crispy Curry Rice) at Intu-On, a Thai food pop-up at Birba wine bar in Hayes Valley in S.F.Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle
It’s been a brutal year for the restaurant industry, with many establishments closing for good while others continue to fight for survival. Workers have faced layoffs and furloughs. Owners have turned into activists, lobbying the government for financial aid.
The lack of assistance makes optimism for the Bay Area’s restaurant scene difficult, but the year has also shown that locals know how to adapt in a crisis often with delicious or heartwarming results. Pop-ups came out in full force, and food and wine once primarily accessed through restaurants became more widely available to the home cook (and drinker, too). The unending crises prompted much-needed conversations around race and equity, and although those are topics that were present