Margot Cafe's post-tornado gathering on March 5
In that small sliver of space between the overwhelming urgency of Nashville’s tornado recovery efforts and the lonely, shuttered days of COVID-19, chef Margot McCormack managed to slip in a quick party.
Looking back, it had the spontaneous feel of a night that goes down as legendary. Kind of like when parents go out of town and you get away with something. It wasn’t so much about what happened at the March 5 get-together outside of Margot Café & Bar, McCormack’s Five Points restaurant — it was more about the people who happened to come together sharing a moment. In this case, it was a moment to take a collective breath between two very different kinds of storm.
“Is that your baby?” I remember Margot hollering across the crowd. She was pointing at a longtime server with a toddler on her hip. She knew good and well it wasn’t her baby. But this was Margot in a good mood, teasing in her dry wit. The light had turned golden, and the air smelled like spring as burgers sizzled on grills. Long tables in front of her restaurant held the love and weight of a church-style potluck: collards, beans, potato salad. Like Margot Café, neighboring 3 Crow Bar also was closed from tornado damage, but its employees sent a cooler of meat from their walk-in. The Farm House sent chicken. Lyra, Sweet 16th Bakery, Woodland Wine Merchant and Weiss Liquors pitched in too.
“I don’t even know how many people contributed,” Margot says. “All of a sudden food would show up on the table. Thank goodness, because we had way more people than I even imagined.”
Just a few days prior, Margot had awoken in a panic, not knowing if her longtime restaurants — Margot Café and Marché next door — remained standing. She rushed into a dark, wet mess, where she found parts of the cafe’s awning and the patio roof ripped off and windows blown out. Neighbors weren’t so lucky. The building once home to a Family Dollar on the same block had been leveled. Burger Up, BoomBozz and The Soda Parlor, all devastated.
But later that week, as regulars and friends rolled up in work boots — most of them on foot due to squad cars blocking roads and yellow tape cordoning off destruction — the dinner party spilled into the street. People hugged — so many hugs back then! We thought we were on the other side of tragedy. We knew we had plenty more grieving and work to do. But the power had flickered back on for a moment. “You’re healing the neighborhood with your food,” a neighbor told Margot. None of us would have expected, as we huddled so close together, that just a few weeks later the restaurant would be shuttered indefinitely due to the pandemic, with more than 50 employees laid off.
“I felt like I was on this weird game show — a cross between Top Chef and The Amazing Race,” Margot says. “It was some crazy challenge every day.”
When I think about the reasons I love Nashville, I always come back to the hospitality and community of this place. I know I’m biased, but I think we’re pretty good at it — throwing a party, putting on some music and working together in creative ways to invite strangers to the table. Even when we’re complaining about bachelorettes, we’ll find them a vodka soda and show them a good time. It’s like those of us who love it here are in on a family joke, or inside story. Yeah, we’ve had our wild nights under neon moons, Ryman shows followed by beers at Robert’s or raucous Preds games. But the quieter, magical moments happen too — stumbling upon a special show at the Station Inn, a bowl of soup at Mas Tacos, a backyard cookout when you find out for the first time that your neighbor sings. We know we love this place for better, deeper reasons than simply the parties — it is our community. Even while many of the places where we eat and drink and listen to music remain closed, music and food are still keeping us together — even from afar — and helping us adapt and reach one another in new ways.
Near Margot Café at Lockeland Table, co-owner Cara Graham created Community Hour a few years ago as a way to raise money for local causes. Recently, when the restaurant ran out of pizza boxes, Five Points Pizza shared some of theirs — a small kindness showing community solidarity among two restaurants that had experienced weeks of closures following the tornado.
Julia Sullivan of Henrietta Red, also affected by both the tornado and coronavirus, helped form a group called Tennessee Action for Hospitality, which lobbies lawmakers and raises money for restaurant workers. It all started with a mass text to industry friends from chef Bryan Weaver of Butcher & Bee and Redheaded Stranger. “I think we all needed something to do and band together,” Margot says of the efforts to form Tennessee Action for Hospitality.
Though many unknowns remain, I see on social media that both Margot and Sullivan seem to be looking for hope in their backyard gardens. It makes me think of “No Hard Times,” the old Jimmie Rodgers song that Marty Stuart sang on the Opry recently, playing to an empty house. It’s all about finding gratitude in the things that help us make meals, whether it’s “corn in my crib,” a “bale of flour” or a “bucket of lard.”
When it comes to cooking, Margot says she’s buoyed to see employees make her dishes at home. “My staff is cracking me up,” she says, “They’re calling me up asking for recipes.” Sometimes they post in groups with names like “Cooking Through COVID.” That Facebook group — started on a whim by Belcourt Theatre communications and marketing director (and longtime friend of Margot) Cindy Wall — now has more than 3,600 members sharing their dinners, from French stews to Pop-Tarts. Elsewhere, offline, music publicist Maria Ivey is compiling a community cookbook called All the Thyme in the World. The recipes come from music-industry folks including interns, artists and more, and all proceeds benefit the Music Health Alliance.
In my job at The Nashville Food Project, community is baked into our mission to “grow, cook and share nourishing food with the goals of cultivating community and alleviating hunger in our city.” We’re also navigating community in this time of social distancing. Under normal circumstances, TNFP serves an average of 5,500 meals a week, often from large hotel pans and mostly in communal settings. One of my favorite examples is Trinity Commons, a family-style dinner that has happened weekly for six years and draws folks from all walks of life. I met a woman there who lived in transient motels and saved every paper name tag she received at those dinners, sticking them all in a composition book. We see the power of coming together. Yet the Trinity meal goes on, as do others — served from to-go boxes instead. The organizers say the need for food has increased, and even folks who once volunteered now find themselves in need of a meal.
That all brings me back to the restaurant community. At The Nashville Food Project, we have leaned on the extraordinary generosity of the hospitality industry over the past decade, with dinners and auctions helping us raise funds to feed so many in the city. Now, as the helpers need our help, we’re working with Fat Bottom Brewery on a weekly grocery-share initiative called Community Cupboard for out-of-work industry folks. We’ve also launched a satellite-kitchens concept we hope to expand. We’re partnering with Henley Nashville on a model we hope keeps restaurant employees working, while expanding our meal output to those who need them. “That’s what community is,” I remember our CEO, Tallu Schuyler Quinn, saying not long ago, “a give-and-take.”
And that’s the message I hope we all can keep showing one another. These places that have made impressions on our hearts may have switched off their lights for a while — the restaurants, the Ryman, the shops where owners know our names and make us feel like we’re a part of something. But community stands stronger than walls, and it always will. We’re not going anywhere.
We’re here for one another now, and we’ll keep coming back when the yellow tape finally comes down.
