brooklyn wine bar says "people over profits" and seems to mean it?!
new (and familiar) halal options in the city, UWS residents vote down a hub for e-bike delivery riders, and 311 caller reports raccoons are eating lasagna
Welcome to the Knife Bloc!
Randomly this week, TikTok decided to serve me video after video about LA-based grocery brand, Erewhon, home to Hailey Bieber’s viral $18 smoothie, $30 bottled water, adaptogens (health (?) powders), described by Reddit as “more Whole Foods than Whole Foods.”
As of yet, Erewhon has no locations in NYC, but there have been rumors of plans for one for years. Fair warning, when it does make its way here, there will be —conservatively — 8.7 million think pieces about the fact that the name is a reference to a 1872 satirical novel about a supposed utopia (Erewhon) where every person’s health is their individual responsibility and any lack of health is criminalized. Not to mention the fact that the owners of Erewhon decided, without irony, to make that the name of their rarified “wellness”-focused grocery brand. And now TikTok influencers — again, without a trace of shame — use its products to make $200 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and $1000 ice cream sundaes, using ingredients like sprouted almond flour, keto whipped cream, and topped with sea moss gel and macca powder.
To say the least — it feels like this definition of “health,” leaves a lot unexamined. Especially three years into a pandemic, and especially as the government is retreating, leaving us to fend for ourselves and forcing immunocompromised people further into isolation.
Anyway, just thought I would leave you with some unhinged reflections before I went on Spring Break.
In this week’s newsletter, I spoke with Stephanie Watanabe and Eric Hsu, the owners of Coast and Valley, a wine bar in Greenpoint. We talked about their commitment to a “values-based wine list,” their choice to eliminate tipping, and what humane, conscious business practices can look like. Growing up in the fair trade movement (my dad immigrated from Colombia to Canada in the early 90s and was early to the organic and ethical coffee movements), these discussions dominated my childhood. A lot of what Stephanie and Eric had to say reminded me of my dad, namely his sincere idealism and work ethic.
This week’s round up of links includes a new tour of immigrant food traditions in the Lower East Side, a retrospective on two decades of NYC’s non-emergency services line, 311, and Community Board 7 votes down a proposed hub for delivery drivers near 72nd Street.
And with that, I hope you enjoy the third edition of the Knife Bloc.
Owners of Brooklyn Wine Bar Coast & Valley say “Profits Over People”
When Eric Hsu, co-owner of Brooklyn wine bar, Coast & Valley, attends trade shows to meet with wine makers and sellers, he knows going in he will probably only visit two, maybe three, tables and then leave. Coast & Valley, which Hsu runs with his partner, Stephanie Watanabe, boasts a “values driven” wine list, which, as of the last six months, exclusively features wines from Women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ wine makers. In the United States, that leaves the list of potential business partners pretty short.
The high-end food and beverage industry remains notoriously inaccessible to many marginalized people. The wine making class, in particular, is overwhelmingly white, straight, wealthy, and male. When it comes to building a balanced, ethically sourced wine list that caters to different palates and price points, Hsu’s options are limited. “In some ways it actually makes my job easier,” he says.
Hsu and Watanabe’s principled approach to the food and beverage industry extends beyond their wine list. Since opening in May of 2019, they’ve eliminated tipped wages, offer paid vacation time, and have implemented a base starting wage of $25 an hour for all workers.
In a few short years, Coast & Valley has set a new standard in New York dining — though many establishments claim a commitment to “sustainability” and “equity,” by offering Organic menu items or donating a portion of their profits — most have failed to integrate care and equity for workers into the daily-to-day operations of their business.
Hsu and Watanabe — neither of whom had previous food service experience (she worked in the film industry, he in tech) — believed things could be different.
Using funds cobbled together from savings, the sale of their LA home, support from around 20 “friends and family” investors, and a round on “NextSeed” (a platform for small investors to invest in local privately-owned businesses), Hsu and Watanabe opened Coast & Valley in the upscale neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn in May of 2019. The bar itself is small, but the white walls, floor-to-ceiling front windows, and a striking lighting installation, consisting of glass bottles hanging from the ceiling, make the most of the space.
Their first year open was busy, with both Hsu and Watanabe working 100 hour weeks. When the 2020 lockdowns slowed their business, they took the opportunity to reflect on whether their practices aligned with their personal values. They experimented, and eventually opted to eliminate tipping and institute a 20% “admin fee” on all checks.
“It felt wrong for customers to determine the value of our team,” Watanabe said. Tipping — in addition to exposing workers to potential sexual harassment and violence — has a troubled, racist history in the United States, with Black workers still reporting significantly lower tips than their white colleagues.
Food systems are inscrutable to consumers, in general, with prices obscuring inequities and exploitation at just about every point of the supply chain. Restaurants keep prices low by paying servers a subminimum wage and expecting them to make up the difference in tips. Instead of accepting this as the norm, however, Hsu and Watanabe have reconfigured their compensation to ensure everyone is paid a minimum of $25 an hour, including kitchen staff and owners.
“That means that the minimum floor I could make on a shift, doubled, or more than doubled,” says server Matthew Zavislan, who has worked at Coast & Valley since 2019. Further, if the restaurant gets busy, earnings collected from the 20% admin fee, above a certain threshold, are distributed to staff at the end of the month, like a bonus. “This prevents the restaurant from cashing in,” says Zavislan. Last month, after the admin fee was distributed, for example, Zavislan made an extra $4 an hour.
Hsu and Watanabe went into this knowing it might not work and that they could lose money. “We didn’t care,” Watanabe said. “People over profits.”
Both Hsu and Watanabe come from entrepreneurial immigrant families: Watanabe is Japanese-American and was raised Mormon, and Hsu is first generation Taiwanese. The couple speaks in the parlance of California entrepreneurs — the words “pivot” and “iterate” came up multiple times — and they credit their shared “decades” of experience of starting and running businesses as preparing them for the challenge of opening Coast and Valley. Their enthusiasm and evident commitment to making their business more equitable has engendered loyalty in their team of employees.
Zavislan — or “Matty,” as Watanabe calls him — started on Coast & Valley’s “founding team” when it opened back in 2019. He praises his employers with a practiced rhythm and uses “we” to refer to various hiring practices or remuneration policies (“we decided we wanted managers,” “we promoted them to their current position”).
He specifically mentions their vacation pay policy. If Zavislan is ever short one month, he knows that he can go to Watanabe and ask to “cash in'' on some of his time off — Watanabe can schedule him “off” on a day he isn’t working, adding a paid day to his check.
Coast and Valley specializes in California wines, where Hsu and Watanabe lived for 20 years, though they’ve recently expanded to include other west coast labels. As such, their wines’ flavor profiles retain the sensibility of the coastal landscape. One wine — straightforward and memorable because of the sketch of an oyster on the label — tastes like sea water and a very dry pickle brine.
The wines also provide means of accessing insights about the social and political conditions in which they were produced. A 2020 orange wine on Coast & Valley’s list has the smell — and to a lesser extent, taste — of a campfire. Zavislan explained that the vineyard had nearly been scorched during horrific forest fires that year, which were exacerbated by climate change and poor forest management practices. (At the time, Watanabe issued a statement on their Instagram expressing solidarity with their impacted partners).
When describing another red, “La Cuadrilla” a 2021 Syrah blend, Zavislan goes on an rapid diatribe — too rapid to follow six half glasses deep into an omakase — about how the winemakers share profits with, and “address precarity” for, their vineyard workers, and “support them in seeking paths to citizenship.” The label honors the vineyard’s women workers, depicting the mythic Mexican revolutionary, “Adelita.” At Coast & Valley, a glass of Adelita costs $17 and the omakase experience is $50. Other flights featuring Black-owned and LGBTQ+ wineries are available for the same price.
Before they made the commitment to a “values driven” wine list, when many of the established names in the wine industry failed to speak up for racial justice during the uprisings of 2020, Watanabe had neither the intention — nor the personal inclination — to stay silent. She said, “We wondered if we needed to call all our partners and tell them they were off the list.” Evidently, the answer was partially: “yes.” This frustration evolved into their commitment to work with winemakers from historically marginalized communities.
They weren’t alone in examining their business practices during the 2020 lockdowns and uprisings. Miguel de Leon, considered one of the best sommeliers in New York City, published a Medium article, “Actionable Items for the Wine Community,” calling for accountability for industry leaders who “stayed silent” and for winemakers and restaurant owners to diversify their staff. Lauren Friel, owner of Sommerville wine bar Rebel Rebel, announced her intention to start a paid (or for-credit) internship for BIPOC teens in local schools interested in careers in the food and beverage industry.
Progress on both these fronts has been slow, however, and riddled with setbacks, but Friel plans to launch her internship this fall, and de Leon remains a respected expert on the urgent need to “decolonize wine.”
Though Hsu and Watanabe are clearly passionate about what they’ve accomplished, they understand that the systemic injustices in the food industry go beyond Coast & Valley and its wine list. “I want to believe customers care,” Watanabe says, “but living in late stage capitalism, asking them to care about things is just really hard…” Hsu jumps in: “People are tired. They don’t want to be activists all the time.”
Of course, not everyone can afford $17-25 glasses of wine on a regular basis, which limits the capacity of their efforts to make change in the food service industry. Though their prices are competitive, Watanabe acknowledges they offer a rarified experience. She also generally thinks we should all go out to eat less often. “I’m a big supporter of people learning how to cook,” she says.
Still, there remains much that is innovative — if not necessarily revolutionary — in their approach.
If you want to visit Coast & Valley, they are open Tuesday through Sunday and located near McCarren Park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. If you are keen to learn more about wine, they offer “Wine 101 Workshops” on a monthly basis.
some reads for your Saturday:
A proposed hub for e-bike delivery workers at W 72nd street has been the subject controversy among some Upper West Side residents, citing concerns about the location and the risks posed by lithium batteries. The proposal was ultimately voted down at a March 7th meeting. The proposed rest stop was supported by Los Deliveristas Unidos, a collective of delivery workers, would have provided delivery workers with necessary amenities, such as charging stations for their bikes.
Caroline Shin wrote about city’s increasingly diverse halal food scene — in it, you can find recommendations for halal birria, chicken and waffles, and restaurants specializing in Thai, Senegalese, and Palestinian cuisines.
Check out Eater’s most anticipated restaurant openings from around the city this spring. Highlights include Salty Lunch Lady’s Luncheonette in Ridgewood, “jew-ish” dishes at Gertrude’s, and Alligator Pear, which specializes in classics from New Orleans.
And finally: “A raccoon is eating lasagna on my porch,” said one 2014 memorable caller to 311, NYC’s non-emergency line. Last week, the mayor’s office marked 20 years of 311 with this brief report. Gothamist wrote up some of the highlights, but it’s worth reading in fully, particularly for the “Calls to Remember” section.
interesting food events happening in NYC:
Connect with Coast & Valley at their popular monthly “Wine 101 Workshops.” Register for the two hour class here, the next date is March 18.
Expert Brooklyn-based forager, Marie Viljeon, has added more dates to her spring foraging picnic schedule. Highlights include Earth Day in Prospect Park and late April in Fort Tilden. I joined Marie in Inwood yesterday (Sunday) to celebrate the Sugar Moon. We had beautiful weather and found an ungodly number of (edible) wood ear mushrooms!
Check out the NYC Artisanal Food Pop-up on Sunday, March 19, at Grand Bazaar NYC at Columbus Ave and W 77th St.
And now, last but not least, join this tour of Lower East Side, which focuses on the immigrant food traditions of Little Italy and Chinatown.