How Baton Rouge food businesses made family meals a priority during COVID-19

Supplying meals for the family table has been the focus of culinary entrepreneurs Joan Chastain and Shannon Countryman for the last eight years. Their Ingle Eats online meal service provides prepared foods and DIY kits for pickup or delivery.

“We’ve always been about giving our customers a needed night off, or something new to eat if they’ve lost interest in cooking,” Countryman says. “We do a lot of comfort food, as well as dishes inspired by what we read or where we go.”

The coronavirus pandemic saw Ingle Eats retooling operations to accommodate more orders from supermarket-shy residents, while also making sure the staff had plenty of distance in the kitchen to create those orders. The outfit began offering daily pick-up and delivery, which formerly had taken place just weekly.

No surprise, patrons have been interested in comfort food, including homemade biscuit crust chicken pot pie and meat loaf. A new fleet of DIY cocktail mixer kits, such as a tart and fruity spin on the Paloma, haven’t hurt either.

Several other food entrepreneurs and restaurants have stepped up to create to-go items geared toward family dining.

Read on for the full story from 225‘s May issue, all about how the restaurant industry coped with COVID-19. And check out 225’s full May issue online here.