three Seattle cooks band collectively to remain afloat amid pandemic

Many restaurants have struggled amid the pandemic, but for three chefs in Seattle, joining forces has helped them keep their doors open.

Melissa Miranda, Kristi Brown and Preeti Agarwal opened their restaurants in 2020. Miranda runs Musang, a Filipinx restaurant that started out as a pop-up before growing into a full-fledged restaurant. Meesha Restaurant in Agrawal serves Indian food and Brown hurls “Seattle Soul” at Communion Restaurant and Bar.

“We just put it in gear and just kept walking,” said Brown.

Melissa Miranda, Preeti Agarwal and Kristi Brown opened their restaurants just before the pandemic.Courtesy Melissa Miranda, Kristi Brown, and Preeti Agarwal

While their restaurants were successful when they opened – Miranda said she waited three hours and was at full capacity most nights after it opened in January 2020, and Brown said she had a “great welcome” – the pandemic made things quick, of course complicated.

“When I started in June, we were only open for two days, take-away only,” said Agarwal. “And then again, we shut down for a while, you know, because we went back and forth with the lock.”

Miranda said she quickly realized she needed to change her operations when the pandemic hit Washington, one of the first states to address the coronavirus.

“Since community has always been the most important aspect of operating this space for us, we converted our restaurant into a communal kitchen two days after we closed,” said Miranda.

Brown quickly joined the communal kitchen, wanting to help serve the community that had supported their restaurant.

“Melissa called a meeting where we could meet and talk about the implications and what we were going to do,” Brown recalled. “One of the things about food people is that we love what we do and we don’t do it for pay. So it was like, ‘OK, we have this food and people are hungry, what are we going to do?’ And so on we got together and founded the Community Kitchen Collective, where we fed people from our stores for free. “

Agarwal quickly turned to take away and was met with “overwhelming” demand.

“We cooked for eight, ten hours,” said Agarwal. “We started taking the orders and it was overwhelming. We weren’t even prepared, so we sold out every day in June.”

Each chef said the women in their kitchens ran the business smoothly.

“Giving women a chance in kitchens is extremely important in an industry that is so masculine,” said Brown. “It’s also very helpful when other sister chefs can do the same.”

The restaurant owners all said they look forward to opening their restaurants to full capacity soon as soon as it is safe to do so.

“We want to achieve 100% for our business,” said Miranda. “I think I can speak for all three of us that there is still so much to do. And that’s why I’m here. I know we’re here for that. We will get there.”

“COVID taught us something: how to just keep going during this time,” said Agarwal. “I think COVID made us a lot stronger, and I think we can do it, and like Melissa said we are not going anywhere. We will be here.”

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Kerry Breen is a reporter and associate editor at TODAY.com, covering health news, pop culture and more. She has a Masters degree in Journalism from New York University.