Shouk's 'Hood Drops' Deliver Food To Suburbs During Coronavirus

WASHINGTON, DC — The coronavirus pandemic has hit D.C.'s thriving restaurant scene hard.

In March, Mayor Muriel Bowser first ordered D.C. restaurants to end dining-in service and switch to delivery or carryout only. She followed that with a stay-at-home order mandating that District residents could only go out for essential reasons. Those two actions have had a huge impact on how D.C. eateries could operate.

"It completely transformed us," said Ran Nussbacher, who owns Shouk, two D.C. restaurants specializing in modern Israeli street food. "It decimated our in-store business. Being located in downtown D.C., we've got a lot of the daytime office traffic and a lot of the nighttime traffic that came into the city or lived in the city. Obviously, most of that is gone."

When Nussbacher opened Shouk four years ago, he didn't have any experience in running a restaurant. What he did have was a desire to make plant-based food appealing, accessible and mainstream, countering the idea that eating plant-based food was not as fun or tasty or as satiating as anything else.

"We offer a range of pita sandwiches and bowls that are all a play on traditional flavors and sauces, but also very innovative," Nussbacher said. "We have a veggie burger called the Shouk Burger, which on the Food Network was voted one of the best in the country. You can get that as a pita or as a bowl. On the flip side, we have something very traditional like Israeli- style falafel. We run the gamut."

All of Shouk's fortunes changed when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

With in-store business nonexistence, Nussbacher temporarily closed his storefront in the Edison Building (395 Morse St., N.E.) and switched to delivery and carryout only at his other location (655 K St., N.W.). But even this was problematic.

Typically, Shouk relies on services such as Uber Eats, DoorDash and Caviar to deliver its food, but they often don't go far enough to reach his restaurant's core customers who are now stuck working at home in the suburbs due to Bowser's stay-at-home order.

"Some of them have these dynamic delivery radiuses like Uber, where if they don't have enough drivers on the road or there's a lot of demand, they may only go a mile or a mile and a half from the restaurant," Nussbacher said. "We can't reach our audience."

Rather than relying on these other delivery services, Nussbacher instituted Hood Drops, in which Shouk drivers will deliver food across the DMV region.

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"These Hood Drops are not only an opportunity for us to serve our customers, but also an opportunity to get creative," he said. "So, if our customers can't get to us anymore, we have to go to them."

Customers can order online or use the Shouk app. They find their neighborhood and order for their neighborhood time. The Shouk drivers aggregate the orders and drop them off at predesignated times and locations.

For the last couple of weeks, Shouk has been making Hood Drops at the following locations:

• D.C.: Dupont Circle, Cleveland Park, Logan Circle, Palisades
• Maryland: Potomac (Woodrock and Har Shalom), Bethesda (Westlake Crossing and Westbrook), Chevy Chase, Silver Spring, Takoma, Rockville
• Virginia: Ballston

New locations are added every week.

According to Nussbacher, the response from his core customers has been overwhelmingly positive.

"The reception has been amazing," he said. "Every day, we get requests from people who want to add their neighborhood the to mix, so there's a lot of demand out there, for sure. People are looking for not only what's in their immediate vicinity, but more importantly high-quality, increasingly plant-based food these days because they want to be healthy."

As a business owner, Nussbacher is grateful to be in an industry where he can serve the community while it's facing hard times.

"Everybody is in this together," he said. "It's certainly affecting small businesses, but it's affecting people first and foremost. I don't feel that we are uniquely challenged by this moment. Everybody is."

Also See:

Coronavirus: 10 Weekday Food Distribution Sites Open In DC

DC Ends Seating At Restaurants, Bars Under Coronavirus Response

Coronavirus: DC Mayor Orders District Residents To Stay Home