The StayInTakeOut Series
The StayInTakeOut series I created during my employment at MP, an HR and payroll company, is one of my favorite video series I’ve worked on. We noticed that one of the hardest hit industries during the COVID-19 pandemic was restaurants, with almost all restaurants being forced to shut down and adjust their business models. The transition to a primarily takeout model proved particularly difficult for smaller operations. MP saw these clients struggling and in response created Restaurant Love, a campaign to encourage more takeout orders and support local restaurants.
A main feature of this campaign was the StayInTakeOut Series, a 3 part mini-documentary series that I produced.
Our first restaurant we covered was The Castle, a restaurant which I helped get off the ground by producing their original crowdfunding video. The Castle was in a unique situation - being a board game café meant they had a huge library of games that were sitting on a shelf with no one to play. With a little bit of creativity, they came up with a board game rental service to make sure the community could have alternative forms of entertianment during a difficult time.
Cook in Needham was the follow up to The Castle. Cook was a more traditional style restaurant and a great way to showcase how devastating the effects of the pandemic had been on their business. They had just reopened when we filmed and you could feel the excitement around Paul Turano as he talked about ways he wanted to innovate in the restaurant industry.
Sweet Basil was the final restaurant covered in our series. Chef Dave Becker showed how to be a leader in the middle of one of the biggest crises the world has ever seen. Keeping a calm and collected head was key to maintaining staff morale during stressful shifts and providing local service workers with much needed hot meals.