Our May issue is all about how Baton Rouge restaurants have stepped up during COVID-19

For weeks, restaurant dining rooms have been eerily empty. Chairs are stacked on tables, lights are dimmed, and liquor bottles collect dust.

But back of the house, kitchens still glow. Small crews keep cooking, keep serving.

In the beginning, the decision to stay open for takeout and delivery seemed to be about restaurant owners keeping their businesses alive.

But as Louisiana’s stay-at-home order drags on and COVID-19 cases climb, that decision has grown into something more. Restaurants are making meals for health care workers and those in need. Competitors are now collaborators, fighting not just to keep their own eateries afloat, but to keep their neighbors open, too. Chefs who flex their creativity with plating are finding ways to make food in styrofoam boxes interesting. Cooks and servers are hopping on bikes, going beyond their job descriptions to deliver meals. And they all are risking their own health to give the rest of us the tiniest sense of comfort in one of the strangest, darkest times we can remember.

Read on for all the stories from Baton Rouge’s restaurant scene, featured in 225‘s May 2020 issue—from how restaurants are cranking up food trucks to hit the streets to first-person accounts from restaurant owners about how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting their businesses.