Kristen Hall

Read more about the Covid-19 Oral History Project here on the Southern Foodways Alliance website. Find the full transcription of my interview with Kristen Hall of the Essential and Bar La Fête on the SFA archive.

TRANSCRIPT

Kristen Farmer Hall: You know, and I will also say—this is really not specifically on this topic of the PPP, but for us in the food industry, I will say that, you know, it’s been such, like, a juxtaposition between the food and beverage industry was just decimated, right, by COVID, but at the same time, the seasons didn’t stop, right? And so we still were able to have the tiniest sense of normalcy when it was like, “Oh, it’s peach season. It is tomato season. Oh, it’s eggplant season,” and being able to sort of like keep a little bit of a rhythm, a little bit of a natural sort of circadian rhythm, even, for our day and produce and things like that. So as the strawberry tarts just passed by, I was like, “Yes, it’s strawberry season.”

Michelle Little: Yeah, yeah, and I remember seeing those types of rhythms pop up on your Instagram. Like, your Instagram was always so inspiring to me throughout even the winter, which, to me, was just the darkest of all times. [laughs]

Kristen Farmer Hall: Right.

Michelle Little: And so I’ve been wanting to ask, like, how—and maybe that’s part of it, is like seeing when produce came in and having this little thing to look forward to and focus on? Like, how were you staying positive through—

Kristen Farmer Hall: You know, I think—I actually do think that, you know, it kind of sounds silly, but, yeah, the fruits and vegetables of, like—there was a little bit of solace knowing that, like, okay, winter is here, and winter, you can use that thematically in many forms, right? So psychologically it was quite the winter, but, you know, it’s one of those things that the spring always comes, right? And it did. It gave a little bit of—I don’t know. There’s a lot of hope in the seasons, and, you know, for me, food really is about—it is about the seasons and it is about hope, it’s about feeding people, and I think that we tried to also keep that in mind.

We decided to be very community-focused on decisions that we made for the restaurant in terms of what we were going to do and what we were going to serve, and, you know, what systems we were going to have. So I think that really—you know, it just kind of shakes things up and kind of gets you out of the doldrums a little bit in terms of what am I going to do versus, like, what are we going to do for them, and I think that really—it really helps. I don’t know. I think that’s what leadership is, really, you know. It’s making decisions, yes, for yourself, but really, like, how can we serve the community? How can we serve our team, you know, through what is probably the craziest thing we’ve all been through? So I think that really helped.