Chase’s Daily turned twenty years old on July 1st. This milestone was much heralded on my Chase’s Daily Instagram account. We all felt your love and appreciation. June was a hard month of heat and drought on the farm—billowing clouds of dust. We had many crop failures and many are still to come from the challenges of those longest days of the year. Enter July and an incredible deluge of rain. The farm is positioned on the first ridges and foothills after the coastal plain. Storms blew in off the ocean and parked in a narrow strip twenty some odd miles from the coast and it poured. We received more than 4 inches of rain last week. More crop losses as mature cabbages popped in half from the excess moisture. I remind myself as I try to absorb the crop failures and move past them, that these problems will turn into compost, and though tangible, are fleeting.
As Covid-19 cases surge in the West and South we brace ourselves, put on our masks, and try to make the most of this season. With the support and help of a circle of friends, Freddy has designed and built a ramada in our parking lot. It is ample, airy, and inviting. It feels like a small triumph to see our customers gather and enjoy our food and each other’s company. The inside of Chase’s Daily will feel odd all season as we have elected for the safety of our staff and family to not pursue indoor dining and strictly limit the number of customers in the space at one time. We are making every effort to fill our space with fresh air for everyone’s safety. This week we will be open Tuesday through Saturday, each day from 8am to 3pm. The produce truck should be unloaded by 10am. We will no longer offer our Pop-Up Dinners on Monday and Thursday evenings. We will be doing a Pizza Night on Friday this week and we will see where we will proceed from there. We will offer a Produce Box for pick up on Friday evening, but may phase this out if demand is too light.
There is so much more here to cover but I will only touch on a few things.
We stand with the Black Lives Matter Movement. I’ve seen many companies break out new mission statements during this time but ours will be limited to that declaration. We donated to a few non-profits supporting the movement during June. After a family business meeting where we really looked at the red glare of our books we have put further donations on hold. We are in a tenuous spot right now and are not in a position to lead with our pocketbooks. Our support, however, is unwavering.
Cleo is back at daycare. Though we miss his constant presence in our lives, we could not open the restaurant for anything close to a full-time schedule without sending him. We will pull him out if cases of Covid-19 begin to emerge in Waldo County. We will not put our business before our health and hope that you will be able to roll with it with grace if we have to decrease our hours or services accordingly.
I listened to an editorial from the New York Times today about income inequality and did finally understand a bit why the stock market continues to grow while so many people struggle to feed themselves and their families, and small businesses are allowed to fail. The government is putting corporate profits before people. I am still trying to figure out what Chase’s Daily represents in the big picture. It requires a colossal familial effort to keep our business going. We don’t offer any benefits except two paid weeks off. We don’t pay a living wage. In all respects ours is a dead end place to work. Except we care deeply about the work we do, our co-workers, and our community. We cling to this life raft of meaningful work with like-minded people—our employees—but values can only sustain you for so long. We walk a narrow path and Covid-19 further imperils our prospects. Yesterday it was the Fourth of July and Freddy, Cleo, Romy and I went for a little hike on Deer Isle. We were lingering on a rocky outcrop when some other hikers stopped to take in the view. Marveling at Cleo’s willingness to get into the ocean they concluded we must be from Maine. Yes, we said, Belfast. Oh, Belfast, one of my favorite restaurants is in Belfast—Chase’s Daily—one of the hikers volunteered. We claimed it as our own and accepted their compliments. I’ve been bothered ever since by their comment: “I paid way too much for some greens there yesterday. They were amazing. I don’t know what you did to them.” They were referencing our Tender Lettuce Salad that was on our menu last week. Sales were pretty disappointing overall—we sold ten on Friday—at $13.50 we certainly did not sell enough to pay for the cost of having an employee work in our salad station. Nor did it cover the cost of growing all the ingredients, or begin to recoup the loss sales of the thousand or so heads of lettuce that succumbed to tip burn in the heat two weeks ago. I picked that salad myself. I love the intersection of the flavors of all the tender herbs—dill, cilantro buds, salad burnet, chervil, fennel leaf, Thai basil, agastache, cutting celery, and parsley—with the sweet, minerally, and bitter flavors of the lettuces. It is so special, rare, and under-valued. Come in this week, order some food, enjoy a salad under the ramada maybe, and savor a fleeting moment.
