Uploaded July 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
The effect of the coronavirus pandemic has been nothing less than catastrophic for the independent restaurants that make up two-thirds of the American dining landscape, from dockside lobster shacks to fine dining emporia, and those effects have cascaded down on farmers and fishermen, on laundry services, and wine wholesalers. At the same time, millions of Americans have spent months honing home-cooking skills while under quarantine or lockdown, sometimes under severe conditions of food insecurity. What happens now? Sam Sifton, an assistant managing editor of The New York Times, returns to the Champlain Institute to survey the damage and talk with Frances Stead Sellers, senior writer at The Washington Post’s America Desk, about the future of food in the United States.
The effect of the coronavirus pandemic has been nothing less than catastrophic for the independent restaurants that make up two-thirds of the American dining landscape, from dockside lobster shacks to fine dining emporia, and those effects have cascaded down on farmers and fishermen, on laundry services, and wine wholesalers. At the same time, millions of Americans have spent months honing home-cooking skills while under quarantine or lockdown, sometimes under severe conditions of food insecurity. What happens now? Sam Sifton, an assistant managing editor of The New York Times, returns to the Champlain Institute to survey the damage and talk with Frances Stead Sellers, senior writer at The Washington Post’s America Desk, about the future of food in the United States.
