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Cambridge restaurant offering special meals for customers impacted by COVID

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — It’s no secret restaurants have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. One Cambridge restaurant is back in business and offering special meals for customers impacted by COVID-19. The meals are also helping to bring employees back to work.

Chef Will Gilson has co-owned Puritan and Company for 9-and-a-half years. Some of his most challenging times were during the recent surge of the omicron variant. “We’d normally be doing 110 people in the restaurant, then we were doing 10 orders of take out, that’s it,” he said.

Due to a COVID outbreak among staff Gilson was forced to shut down the restaurant for a couple of weeks during what is typically a busy season. To offset the losses and get back on their feet and bring employees back to work, Gilson started offering special Covid Care Packages. Instead of ordering takeout for yourself, the idea is you send takeout from the restaurant to someone you know who is home in quarantine or isolating and likely frustrated. The food is delivered right to their doorstep. “The worst part of isolating you can’t go the grocery store you can’t go out and grab food from somewhere you need stuff to be brought to you,” Gilson said.

Each meal consists of enough food for a day or two for one person. It includes a salad, soup, pot pie, rolls and a few cookies. Plus, a get well soon card. “We want people to understand that this isn’t a scarlet letter getting covid. this happens to so many of us. we really want to have that connection where people aren’t just saying hey thanks for this treat they’re saying thanks for bringing a little bit of normalcy while I’m home and trying to figure this out,” Gilson said.

The covid care packages cost about the same as a typical takeout meal. Gilson said he plans to keep the ordering option in place through March.

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