"One day at a time"

Tami Lax of Harvest and The Old Fashioned on adapting during COVID-19

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Madison chef and restaurateur Tami Lax saw looming disaster for the restaurant business early in March, before measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 began, and well before Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway on March 16 instructed restaurants to reduce their capacity by half.

At first it wasn't so much a lack of customers in her two restaurants, The Old Fashioned and Harvest, both on the Capitol Square. "I noticed people cancelling reservations," says Lax. People who were flying into town were cancelling the whole trip, she observed. Lax remembers thinking: "This is going to come fast and hard."

So she gathered her team and started discussing possible options for maintaining food service, especially at the fine dining room Harvest, known for dishes that aren't that conducive to takeout.

"People are not going to want to be ordering scallops with sunchoke puree," Lax remembers thinking. "What do I like to eat when I'm freaked out?" 

Thus rose the concept behind Harvest Go, a takeout and delivery-only version of Harvest. Lax calls the menu "upscale comfort food." There’s a staff of six: three in the kitchen and three handling delivery and curbside pickup.

"We're trying to cook things people won't make for themselves at home," says Lax. While the menu does change from time to time, a couple of favorites have emerged: "We have stuck with the coq au vin, as well as the flank steak, though we change the prep on that." Likewise a vegetable lasagna will soon be switched out for a stuffed manicotti. The coq au vin is Harvest Go's most popular dish. 

Early on, Lax asked for feedback from the people ordering from Harvest Go — were they interested in choosing individual items from a menu, would they like meal kits, would they prefer food family meal style? Most preferred choosing individual items from a menu, with lots of salads and desserts, Lax says. The menu currently contains a daily soup, five salads and seven entrees as well as desserts.

Likewise, Lax's other restaurant, The Old Fashioned, responded to customer demand for its Friday fish fry — perch, cod or walleye — by making it a daily item. "The best-sellers are the hamburger, the walleye sandwich and the fish fry," Lax says. The Old Fashioned has also been selling its housemade bloody mary mix with garnishes of olives, brussels sprouts and pickles.

Business has been slowly building, with Friday the biggest day and each Friday's business stronger than the previous. "I'm so grateful, and our customer base has been insanely generous with tips for the staff," Lax says. She also credits the kindness of her landlord and purveyors.

But Lax wants to be clear that this is not a sustainable model long-term. She doesn't foresee restaurants surviving without "some kind of drastic bailout."

She is also uncomfortable with re-opening to in-house dining with half-measures. She does not want to re-open "until [the virus] is under control. I'm not interested in exposing staff. That will hurt us more."

For now, though, it's "literally one day at a time," says Lax. "We'll change things up if we need to, and stop if we have to."

Harvest Go is open 4-8 p.m. Tues.-Sat. The Old Fashioned is open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon.-Sat.