I've followed Vivian for a good while now so I was interested to read this article.
The only reason Chef & the Farmer survived in Kinston for so long was that it became a destination restaurant. Something fairly rare to find in small-town America. The pandemic put the kibosh on a lot of that travel AND on all sorts of eat-in places. I'll be curious to see how she re-invents it with this "cafeteria-style" service. Not at all a fan of standing in a line with a tray to wait for food. I can see some sort of chef's table situation being enjoyable but it's hard to see how it would work for multiple courses, even if it's just salad, main and dessert. Still, I'll be watching.
It sounds like the Viv's Fridge concept that she introduced last year is having enough success that she figures it will help keep a restaurant afloat. Per her website, there are 9 fridge locations presently. I find the idea of easily (24-7) picking up a restaurant-quality meal that's been designed to be re-heated or otherwise finished at home to be ever so much more appealing than most take-out where dishes are almost always compromised by sitting around in conditions that do it no favors. Quite a few restaurants dabbled in offering dishes of this sort for take-out during the pandemic. Subway is into the smart fridge concept for grab & go cold sandwiches and drinks on college campuses and airports and Coolgreens has been doing something similar for some time but I'm not aware of any restaurants in my area who have set up anything quite like this. Anyone else seen this sort of restaurant-quality smart-fridge offering in their area?
