Queens Restaurant Unites Community in Times of Crisis
Despite dealing with COVID-19, The Queensboro is helping those in need.
By Violet DiBiasio
Quiet music plays over the hushed voices of customers, a vague sense of apprehension settles over the crowd dining at The Queensboro.
These working-class patrons were encouraged to come eat at this small business, an act of bravery for those who have not left their houses in months for fear of being stricken with the coronavirus.
A task as simple as having a drink in the outdoor seating area provided a sense of protection for this new restaurant.
Strangers and acquaintances chat together, the shared feeling that they are finally doing something for the better, curling their tight lips upwards to form a smile.
Most of them are barely staying afloat financially, with many children, expensive rent and a small influx of money pulling them away from the safe harbor known as Jackson Heights. Yet they make the time, spare the money and find a place in their hearts to support this local restaurant that just opened a little over two years ago.
Spending time and money to open The Queensboro finally ended last June. The lack of a dining option that offered American cuisine in Jackson Heights sparked Dudley Stewart, Tony Liu and Mike Fuquay’s interest. These three dads joined together to create The Queensboro.
Although the owners struggled to attain permits and renovate the space previously known as Carpet World, members of the community helped out by donating money and buying gift cards. Though Jackson Heights has a diverse array of places to eat a meal, The Queensboro set out to be more upscale and modern, something that interested many residents.
Since opening, The Queensboro has attracted a substantial crowd and many families. “The people are friendly, the food is delicious and almost everyone I know loves it,” says Able Bloodgood, a frequent customer. These past few months, however, The Queensboro has been faced with many challenges that make it hard for the business to survive.
Despite struggling to stay open, The Queensboro has made huge efforts to interact and connect with the community that helped them to open in the first place.
This restaurant partnered with Queens Together, a program started by Jonathan Forgash who “coordinated restaurant meals to health care workers,” says Dudley Stewart, a part-owner of The Queensboro.
The managers of The Queensboro, alongside members of the community, packaged 400-500 free meals a day to deliver to the hard-working nurses at Elmhurst Hospital in New York. Some of these meals included pasta and chicken, pork and rice, and burritos.
Dudley Stewart delivering the meal packages created for the nurses at Elmhurst Hospital. Courtesy Laura Stewart.
The workers at Elmhurst Hospital were in need of this donation, considering how hard they work in tough conditions. This hospital was overflowing with COVID-19 cases and was dealing with a shortage of supplies.
In an April 5 New York Times op-ed, emergency medical specialist Dr. Ben McVane describes patients as laying on “crowded rows of stretchers” and waiting “endlessly for an available inpatient bed or to be transferred to a less crowded hospital.”
Jackson Heights is filled with a diverse community and immigrants in need. Many of these residents are out of a job or facing a life without health care. Their living conditions are not much better; many large families live together in small houses. No wonder Queens and Jackson Heights have become the epicenter for coronavirus. With 27,759 cases (as of April 9), Queens shot past the average number of cases for the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, which was 17,877.
However, according to The New York Times, the cases in Queens decreased to 4,984 as of Aug. 5. This outnumbers the current average for Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx, which is 2,973. Although the numbers decreased, Queens is still in the lead and is most affected.
Walking past Elmhurst Hospital makes it feel even more real. A lack of room at morgues has caused hospital workers to set up insulated trailers in which they stack dead bodies day after day. It was scarring to walk past this scene. However, these trailers have been removed as cases decrease, and the hospital can accommodate more sick individuals.
These employees are heroes to the community of Queens, and the 7 o’clock cheer speaks for itself. Stewart advertised on his Facebook page this banging of pots, yelling and whistling for the essential workers who risk their lives to serve us. Stewart goes from block to block with a noise dosimeter, determining which block cheered the loudest.
In addition to providing food for hospital workers, The Queensboro has also partnered with Covid Care to deliver food packages to the more needy members of Jackson Heights.
A limited number of volunteers can enter the restaurant and make a system where they efficiently fill bags with food, and these are picked up and delivered safely to designated homes.
If you were to stop by the “Q” on one of these days, you might see a group of teens packing diapers for children they know nothing about, or sticking an extra piece of candy into a bag that they know will be shipped out to a family with many children to care for. So you may ask yourself: Why would a group of inexperienced teens participate in such a project?
Kate Mumford, a rising senior and one of the leaders of this organization, replies, “I could see this huge need for it in my community — our neighborhood was one of the hardest hit.”
Violet DiBiasio, Ella Hoffman, Kate Mumford and Lena DiBiasio help out with the Covid Care organization. They pack reusable bags for other, older volunteers to pick them up and deliver them to their designated houses. Photo by Maria Hoffman
These small acts of kindness reach the hearts of the people in the Jackson Heights community.
Mike Fuquay says residents are able to assist in the good deeds of The Queensboro. He states, “The people in this neighborhood turned around and said, ‘that’s great that you’re doing this. Can we raise some money?’…So people were now paying us for making meals for the nurses at Elmhurst.”
This helps the business keep people on the payroll, pay rent and deal with many more expenses that they were faced with. Without the patronage of the community, reopening would have been far harder than it was.
“It’s been like opening a completely new business,” Fuquay says.
A new menu that allowed the chefs to distance themselves while cooking needed to be created, as well as another system for service that allowed servers to keep a distance from the customers. However, with the help of the Jackson Heights community, it was possible for this business to keep serving.
“We live in a huge city with people crowded in every corner, but in Jackson Heights there’s such a strong sense of community, which added so much more to the work that was being done in a unique way,” Mumford says.
There was a sense of unity to help this small business take off and a diverse set of people were “so genuinely eager to contribute what they could,” Mumford notes.
Despite all the tolling factors The Queensboro and surrounding community were stricken with, the people helped to dig each other out of the holes they had sunken into over these past months.
A spark lights in the eyes of recipients of food baskets, a small smile creeping on their face. For once again, the workers are sacrificing their health to help out fellow community members, but it seems to be worth the risk.
About the Writer:
Violet DiBiasio of Queens, New York
Violet is a passionate lover of writing with 15 years of creativity and zest for life. She lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, and is always looking for new ways to see the world in different lights.