 If someone asked me what the best thing about being a bartender who's unemployed indefinitely due to a global pandemic is, it would have to be the free food and booze. In all seriousness, with this thing showing no signs of slowing down at least in the U.S., it's easy to get discouraged, which is why I'm always delighted to find silver linings. People in different facets of the industry have been teaming up with bars and restaurants that have been forced to close and offering free meals to out-of-work hospitality workers, which brings me to today's activity. I'm currently on my way to Thunderbolt in Echo Park. Thunderbolt is owned by my buddy Mike Cappafari. Mike used to be a bartender, then he worked for Campari, and now he owns a bar, which is basically my ideal career trajectory. He's also a very nice guy. With the shock of entering a global pandemic and forced self-isolation made sense when it was overcast and rainy all the time, and now the weather's beautiful and it makes no sense. And next door to the very now shady night's in is our destination. Mike, Mike say hello to the internet. Hi internet. Tell us about what you're doing. Oh man, we're scrambling to do like whatever we can to keep this thing alive. Sunday night, we got the order to shut down. Monday morning, we just came in and like deep cleaned. Did a little bit of the ghost stuff, but Tuesday partnered with Rami to be able to offer some free meals to our hospitality industry. It was really great and that thing just kind of snowballed and has kept us functioning. It brings in enough money for us to keep kitchen employees on payroll. Other brands, other individuals, other completely outside of the industry companies have stepped up. We've like raised without asking enough money to feed like close to 350 people already. By the end of today, it'll be 375. So all kinds of people, I mean we had everything from just like regulates at the bar, been mowing me under bucks at the time, to a real estate company sponsored yesterday, to Penny Pounder, company sponsored big emails today. But the cocktail in every bag is really, really cool. Clearly, we can't survive on donations alone, so we pivoted to a heavy set of postmates and group of business, really just marketing that through social media. When Governor Newsome loosened up the restrictions on ABC licenses, we really just kind of dove head first into becoming a liquor store, bodega cocktail ghost buy. We have sold a huge amount of our back stock of booze. Via the bottle shop back here, we're super competitively priced with liquor stores around. We're selling 30 cocktails to go a day so far and I think it's going to continue to grow. We're canning, we're bottling, we're backpacking cocktails, being super creative, keeping them super cute, getting like adorable labels made that's funny as we speak. And really just kind of dive in, head first to it. Beginning of next week, we have like a general store set up where we're selling like toilet paper and things we can't get at grocery stores because we restaurants have a totally different supply chain than grocery stores, so we can still get access to that stuff. No plans to gouge people, just wanted to be available for, you know. Every restaurant in the country shut down and the supply chain still exists. And so there's a shitload of goods that have nowhere to go. We can still get deliveries, we can get no shortage of product, no shortage of food, produce, anything like that. So who are the industry meals available to? So any hospitality really, I mean, and take that as far as you want to go, you know, it's like it's not just for bartenders. Although it kind of started that way the first day because it was booze brand stepping up, but we opened it up to everybody. So it's your bar backs, your dishwashers, your busboys, your bartenders, your servers, it's people from linen companies that serve restaurants, people from cleaning crews that serve restaurants, it's DJs who were making their living DJing at bars and restaurants. You can't do that anymore. I don't give a shit what you do. If you lost work, if you need a meal because you don't know where your next paycheck is coming from or how you're gonna pay your rent, sign a firm meal here. I'm not like putting a hardcore betting process on this thing. And how do people find out about this? The only way to market that I didn't know is through Instagram. So that's how sort of all this happens and then through people's reposts is kind of how it keeps spreading. There's a form that opens up every day that you can link to through either my Instagram or through the Thunderbolt LA Instagram at Thunderbolt LA or at MF Kappa Ferry. Thunderbolt LA is easier to spell. It opens up at 11 every day, fill out a form, stay at your pick-up time. If the form's open, we have your meal for you. So far we've gone, I think this is day 11 of the free meals. Something like that. I don't really know. I can't wait. I lost count. I don't know what day it is. That's not a joke. I have no idea what day of the week it is today. It's Friday. Oh, it's Friday. Cool. I think. I think, yeah. We're gonna probably start taking a break once a week on like Mondays because it's just for our health and sanity. I know we've got at least a few more days sponsored and I know someone's gonna step up after that. Most people want to remain anonymous. A lot of people from a lot of different walks of life are keeping it alive. It's amazing. Thanks for your time, man. Thanks for coming by. Sorry I was so fucking hectic, man. I need some cocktails to go, though. Oh yeah. Grownies. Beautiful. I gotta say, I'm really impressed with the Bootstrap survival operation Mike and his team have set up. Seriously, seeing all these people spring into action in the interest of out of work restaurant workers is humbling. Also, the food is incredible. They aren't phoning these meals in. This is food straight from their regular menu. I'm talking brisket, mashed potatoes, and collard greens. To Mike, the crews at Thunderbolt and Penny Pound and everyone else who's contributed to these programs, thank you. But Mike isn't alone. There are places doing this all over LA and all over the country. If you'd like to help out of work hospitality employees affected by bar or restaurant closures, call around to your favorite spots and ask if they have programs like this. And if they do, ask how you can participate. Those labels are great. Yeah, who designed the labels? No.