Popular Fairfax Restaurant Delivers Meals To Front-Line Workers

FAIRFAX CITY, VA — Tatjana Farr, owner of Coyote Grille in Fairfax City, is providing free meals to medical workers and first responders in the Washington, D.C. area to make life easier for them as they work on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis.

Farr, who has owned the restaurant for 18 years, also is doing everything she can to keep her business running during the coronavirus crisis so that when the pandemic eases, Coyote Grille will be in good shape to hire back many of the staff members who were laid off when restaurant dining rooms were forced to shut down.

Farr started a GoFundMe page called Food Forward for the Front Lines to raise money to provide meals to front-line workers. So far, the campaign has raised almost $3,000 to feed workers on the front lines and other people in need. All of the money raised goes to buying the food. Coyote Grille prepares and delivers the food at its own cost.

In particular, Coyote Grille is making an effort to deliver food to the workers who have the night shift, a time when it is harder for departments at medical facilities or fire houses to order food.

After a recent delivery of free meals to Inova Fairfax Hospital, one of the nurses at the hospital came by Coyote Grille a couple days later for a curbside pickup. "She loved the food so much and b0ught food for her entire family," Farr said in an interview with Patch.

Coyote Grille also is making meal deliveries to Maryland, including Nourish Now, a nonprofit food bank in Montgomery County. "I’m all about helping the community," Farr said. "It’s part of my belief system. You help those who are helping others."

Coyote Grille, a Fairfax City favorite, provides flavorful Southwestern-inspired food. During normal times, the restaurant offers an all-season patio for its guests.

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Farr also operates a Coyote Grille Food Truck that has stayed busy during the coronavirus crisis. Residents will learn that the food truck will be showing up in their neighborhood on a particular day. They will then place orders using Coyote Grille's online ordering systems. When the food truck arrives in the neighborhood, Coyote Grille texts the residents who then gather at the truck to pick up their meals.

Coyote Grille also is participating in a program initiated by Fairfax City to use Starship Technologies' sidewalk robots to deliver restaurant meals in a one-square-mile area of the city during the coronavirus crisis.

Starship's fleet of 20 autonomous on-demand robots will deliver food daily from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. The Fairfax City Economic Development Authority has provided a $10,000 support incentive to help lower the average delivery fee charged by Starship to each participating business.

As of last week, Coyote Grille had delivered more than 30 meals using the Starship robots. Farr said she would continue participating in the Starship delivery program if it continues when the coronavirus crisis ends.

On the restaurant's end, the robots are easy to use. After the restaurant makes a meal, the employee uses a phone app to open the latch to the robot and then places the meal inside the compartment. The employee then closes the hatch and the robot goes on its way down the sidewalk to deliver the food to the customer.

Coyote Grille's entire kitchen staff — about 10 employees — have stayed on during the coronavirus crisis to make the food. On the other hand, servers, hostesses and bus staff, totaling about 30 people, were furloughed, except for about six people who are handling the curbside and Starship deliveries.

Farr said the restaurant should be able to get back to normal when the coronavirus crisis subsides as long as there aren't strict restrictions placed on restaurant dining rooms. If restaurants are permitted only 50-percent capacity when dining rooms reopen, Farr said she's not sure if she'll be able to pay the bills.

"I have a 120-seat restaurant. I can’t run it with 60 people," Farr said.

Visit Farr's Food Forward for the Front Lines GoFundMe site to donate money to her campaign to make meals for front-line workers, homeless people and others in need during the coronavirus crisis.

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