“When we’re in a crisis, we cook.” How Martha’s adapted to takeout

By Madeleine Hill Vedel

Sun contributor

When the order came in mid-March to shut the doors of non-essential businesses throughout Michigan, including restaurants, Martha Ryan, her son Matt and his wife Andi had an ace in their back pocket. Though taken by surprise—Sunday, March 15, their weekly Trivia Night occurred as normal—they were able to immediately reconfigure Martha’s Leelanau Table, the European-style bistro in Suttons Bay, from a sit-down dining establishment offering breakfast, lunch, and dinner into a dinner-only take-out.

At their weekly managers’ meeting on Monday, Matt pulled out the menu proposal he had drawn up more than a year ago when he had hoped to persuade his mother to incorporate take-out meals into the business. During that noon meeting, they weighed their options, and even as they got in touch with a dozen or so employees and told them they would need to file unemployment claims, they spoke with Dylan Schmidt and Fred Hall, who’ve worked at Martha’s since shortly after its opening more than 10 years ago, to ask if they would consider joining this new effort. “It was just Matt, Andi, Fred, Dylan, and me. We just kept on going, blindly at first.” Said Martha.

There were kinks to work out, including packaging, and of course communicating the changes to the outside world. But for Martha, it was never an option to close the restaurant. As for many professionals in the food world, and many home cooks as well, Martha shares, “When we’re in a crisis we cook. We cook. We cook. If I didn’t have that outlet it would be hard. If I just had to stay home and do nothing.”

Martha began writing daily posts with the updated menu, comments on the weather, and inspiring quotes on her Facebook page. These were shared on social media via Instagram, the Overheard in Leelanau County Facebook page, and numerous reposts by friends and colleagues. Contented customers helped out by photographing their meal, unpacked on their home table, and sharing these photos on Instagram and Facebook.

The day I spoke with Martha, she had just written her 73rd post. “When I write my posts I think about where I might find a quote, and from whom. I want to find something people might want to think about—food people, historical, women, Julia Child, Alice Waters, people I admire and look up to. They all have things to say. It adds a little something contemplative to the post. It’s not just a random thing. I’m trying to convey some excitement about food.”

As the days, weeks, and now months passed, the restaurant menu evolved and adapted to the supply chain, disrupted by the virus. Local farms, fishermen, and certain packaged goods’ suppliers continued to deliver. As certain items—meat in particular—became either less available or vastly more expensive, the team adapted. As a result, sirloin steaks have been removed from the menu options, and new grain bowls were added. Happily for seafood lovers, crab cakes, perch, white fish, and salmon have made frequent appearances.

A recipient of a Federal PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loan, the only federal loan available specifically designed to help small businesses during the Coronavirus pandemic, Martha has begun paying her furloughed staff even though she cannot bring them back to the restaurant as yet. (Full disclosure, I have worked for Martha as a line chef and pastry chef, and just received her second check, though not as yet called back to work.) “It’s kind of crazy,” Martha says, “paying staff when we can’t hire them back.” But these are the terms of the loan and Martha is being careful to follow all the regulations as they are communicated. As for many of her colleagues who have received these loans (La Bécasse in Burdickville, The Cooks’ House in Traverse City, among others), she is hoping it will be forgiven.

With the state, and our region in particular, opening up, Martha, though she wasn’t fully open for Memorial Weekend, is putting in place her summer plan, adjusting to the new normal. Lacking an official Federal Plan, each and every local and state agency has communicated theirs to her: “The Michigan Licensed Beverage Association, the Health Department, both the Leelanau/Benzie, and Grand Traverse Counties, the Michigan Restaurant Association—they all have a plan for re-opening. You have to have a plan for this and a plan for that. We’ve got a journal. We have to record our temperature every day. We ask everybody—did you meet anybody? Were you exposed? Do you have a cough? We’re doing all that.”

All staff will be tested before they start work. The core team has already been tested, making the trek out to the testing site at M-72 near Tom’s Food Market. They have received their results: negative. 

“We want to be sure that everybody is trained. We want it to be as comfortable as we can make it, considering the circumstances. Safe for them and safe for us.”

With a planned opening date of June 12, service will be reservation and dinner only, seven nights a week, outside on the patio. Specially made planters will be placed between tables to render the required six foot distances more visually appealing and cozy. Four to six more employees will be called back to work. All staff will wear masks. Each will have their individual tub of PPE (personal protection equipment): masks, gloves, and bottles of sanitizer; and assigned tasks, including the employee whose sole job it will be to disinfect tables, chairs, door handles, the bathroom—any and all surfaces between uses. The designated hostess will take the temperatures of arriving guests, and seat them at their table, ready and waiting.

Dylan will continue to manage the take-out orders by phone as he has these past 70 days. To permit more seating, and to compensate for the lost option of a dine-in lunch, the kitchen will be open an additional hour from 4 to 9 pm. The prix fixe menu of $25 for three courses will be shifted to the earlier hour, 4-5 pm from its past position at 5-6 pm.

With hope in her voice, and confidence in her staff and the many guests who’ve faithfully dined at her restaurant over the years, Martha says, “We [the restaurant and the local agencies] are just making the rules up as we go along here, just trying to do our best with what the universe has sent our way.”