It started so simply, almost by accident: When Jackson Flores and Brian Soto saw a need spawned by the pandemic, they helped.
In May, they launched an Instagram page offering practical tips for restaurants reeling from last spring’s shutdown and scrambling to pivot for survival. They shared things that might come naturally to marketing-savvy restaurant groups, but not necessarily to the mom-and-pops of the city: How to take a great Instagram food photo, what online searches spiked while the world stayed home.
When businesses were left in June to replace shattered windows and ruined goods after unrest broke out following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Flores and Soto volunteered to help with cleanup and boarding windows.
They haven’t stopped helping since.
In the 11 months since the two launched their nonprofit, DishRoulette Kitchen, it has distributed more than $40,000 in microgrants of $500 or $1,000, plus worked with dozens of restaurants on applying for Paycheck Protection Program loans or other government support, adapting to a takeout model or other pandemic alterations.
They’ve brought on a brand developer and an outreach specialist, and collaborated with Mi Tocaya owner and chef Diana Dávila and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association to expand their reach. They worked on the Celebrate Argyle campaign spurred by March attacks on Asian Americans.
“We create resources, we advocate for people who are traditionally left behind by economic relief programs: women, people of color and undocumented entrepreneurs,” Flores said. “But at the heart of everything is education.”
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Takeout Awards virtual event: Help us celebrate and give back to Chicago’s restaurants
On April 26, the baiduhai will celebrate the winners of our 2020 Takeout Awards during a virtual event featuring a talk with chefs Diana Davila and Beverly Kim, and Black People Eats founder Jeremy Joyce about the post-pandemic future of the city’s dining industry. baiduhai reporter Louisa Chu will moderate the conversation, and ticket donations benefit DishRoulette Kitchen. Sign up here.
Flores and Soto are ideally suited to their work: Soto runs an accounting firm geared toward small businesses on the Northwest Side, while Flores spent 12 years working in posh, Michelin-rated restaurants like Quiote and University Club of Chicago before she began working as a restaurant consultant in 2016.
They know firsthand “there’s a reason why some businesses are set to succeed and others seem destined to fail,” Flores said. “So much of it is about surviving one day to get to the next, that no one is thinking about scaling their business or creative products they can sell through e-commerce. They’re simply just trying to get by.”
Through DishRoulette Kitchen’s Instagram, restaurant owners asked how to convert their dine-in business to a takeout and delivery model, how to operate their own delivery service to avoid high fees from big companies — and how to afford it.
“It’s easy for us to say to a business owner, ‘You need X, Y and Z to be on a pathway to digitizing your business,’ but one costs $30 a month, another $17,” Flores said. “Small business owners go into the day already owing money for labor and other costs. That can be a lot for them.”
So DishRoulette Kitchen made it easier. It offers free social media strategizing and training on things like employee turnover, and helps clients navigate applying for loans, paying taxes, getting permits and licenses, and other financial processes that can be difficult to figure out.
“We’re creating a road map for people who are already doing the work, aren’t shy about hard work, but are working harder than they have to because they don’t know where these pockets of funding and help are,” Flores said.
While DishRoulette Kitchen has helped new concepts get up and running, cherished neighborhood mainstays have needed just as much assistance in these uncertain times. For every Angel Chavez looking to open a virtual bakery out of Bistro Champagne’s kitchen, there’s an Uncle Mike’s Place, where owners needed to adapt how they served one of the city’s best Filipino breakfasts after 30 years in business.
“The pandemic leveled the playing field for everyone. It didn’t matter if you had a Michelin star or a James Beard award — your business suffered too,” Flores said. “Everybody had a chance to rewrite their own story.”
For Rubi’s Maxwell Street, that meant a new chapter, sans Maxwell Street. Foot traffic at the historic Maxwell Street Market generated enough business for the family-owned taco stand over its 23 years in business.
But the market shut down in March 2020, two weeks into the season.
“It was the only source of income that we had,” said owner Maria Landa. “So when they closed, you’re like, ‘What am I going to do now?'”
Rubi’s started as a produce stand in the early 1990s, then started making its own food. In 1997, Landa’s mother-in-law passed the business on to Landa and her husband, and they renamed it after the youngest of their three children. It was a family affair through and through — even employees who have been with Rubi’s almost since the beginning are now honorary members of the clan.
Landa started cooking from her Albany Park home, offering pickup orders of tacos, quesadillas and pozole on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The family applied for PPP loans and other government-funded grants set up amid the pandemic, but because their business was considered a street vendor, they weren’t accepted, said daughter Evelyn Ramirez.
“She had already applied to so many things, and she didn’t get help,” Ramirez said of her mother. Ramirez, 35, found DishRoulette Kitchen through Instagram and saw it was offering grants. They applied, and this time, they got a “yes.”
The $1,000 grant from the nonprofit was enough to help Rubi’s rent kitchen space at Casa Indigo in Pilsen on Sundays, making it possible to expand their fledgling takeout business.
“It came at the perfect time,” Ramirez said. “Little by little, more people are finding out. You have to know how to take advantage of social media. People come in and say they saw us on TikTok or Facebook.”
While Landa’s family has yet to hear from the city on whether Maxwell Street Market will return, they are cautiously optimistic about a future for Rubi’s.
“We’ve been working nonstop since the market closed, I think more than before,” Landa said. “But I feel so lucky, because we are still working, and our customers are still coming. We’re very blessed.”
DishRoulette Kitchen has continued to lend a hand, sending a photographer to help Rubi’s get high-quality photos to spread on social media.
“It’s very cool to watch people keep that spirit alive and rely on us to build practices they’re going to use long term,” Flores said. “Others were dying to do their own thing for a long time, but they were line cooks or sous chefs when didn’t have time.
“We get to watch people take such a devastating time in our human history and turn it around in a way to build things they care about, and also change the trajectory of their lives.”
The baiduhai’s virtual event celebrating the 2020 Takeout Awards will raise money for DishRoulette Kitchen. All donations from the April 26 event will go to the nonprofit. Learn more here.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article indicated that the original owner of Rubi’s was Maria Landa’s mother, but it was her mother-in-law.
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