Sahil Rahman and Rahul Vinod, co-owners of fast-casual Indian restaurant Rasa in Washington, D.C., on being part of the solution during coronavirus

The pair had just closed a round of funding and were ready to open their second and third restaurants when the pandemic hit

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

May 20, 2020

2 Min Read

Sahil Rahman and Rahul Vinod have been serving free meals to school children and hospital workers throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Here is their story, in their own words.

The past three weeks have felt like three years. A storm came through flipped our worlds upside down — a not-so-gentle reminder of how little control we have, that the best laid plans are just those — plans.

At Rasa we had closed a round of funding and were gearing up to open our second and third restaurants. In the span of one week, everything changed and we went from planning pre-opening parties to contemplating how to simply keep the doors open at our existing restaurant.

The flip switched, and it has been non-stop ever since. We have been in full-on survival mode, attempting to care for the health of our employees, guests, community and our business all at once. Every day has been a complete rollercoaster, with new guidance and updates coming in from the local and federal government on a seemingly minute-by-minute basis, and we have been doing our best to keep up and make sense of the situation.

The virus has impacted sales dramatically, and as a result, we have been confronted with many impossible choices, including what to do with our employees, how to handle rent negotiations and vendor relations. We have stayed open for takeout and delivery so that we can continue employing as many people as possible, but have had to furlough a number of staff members due to the decreased sales volume.

To help support our team members during this time, we have expanded upon our free employee meal program, and are offering free meals to our furloughed employees and their families.

We also asked ourselves how we might be part of the solution using our resources as a small business, and have been providing free meals to school children and hospital workers. We are looking to expand upon the program, and hope to begin feeding more frontline workers soon.

COVID-19 is a dark cloud that will hang over our industry and planet for years to come, but we are doing our best to stay positive, support the community, and make the best of an extremely difficult time.

This is part of our Stories from the Front Lines series.

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage.

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN.

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2^nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends.

Bret Thorn’s Experience:

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

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