Amy Brown of Chowgirls Catering and Minnesota Central Kitchen
Go anywhere today (this being the first week of May 2020) and you are faced with nearly empty streets shuttered shops and restaurants. The smattering of people you do see are broken into two major categories, the defiant without masks and the concerned ones covered not only with a mask, but often in a homemade PPE of sorts. What is less obvious but none the less a missing texture of our former existence are the gathered wedding guests waiting outside the church for the bride and groom to emerge or the parking lot filled with cars that carried partiers to an event. These missing pieces were the bread and butter of Chowgirls Catering, a company Amy Brown and her partner Heidi Andermak built from a tiny two-person enterprise to one of the premier caterers in the Twin Cities. Then in mid-March, like many other businesses they were closed by executive order from the Governor to help control the Covid-19 pandemic. For Chowgirls, that meant canceling or indefinitely postponing all the weddings, corporate events, birthday parties and other social events already booked for the near future. It even meant the cancellation of Chowgirls own “Sweet Sixteen” anniversary party celebrating their 16 years in business.
Many hospitality businesses, both restaurants and caterers, pivoted to takeout and delivery when the lockdown happened. Others, like Chowgirls, turned to their communities and said, “how can we help”. And so…Minnesota Central Kitchen was born in the Chowgirls kitchen. With the help of Second Harvest Heartland and others they have served over 70,000 donated meals so far and according to Amy, there’s no reason to stop even when Chowgirls gets the opportunity to get back up and running again.
Music: Bright Ideas by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com