Rise Up

Knick’s Tavern & Grill

Knick’s Tavern and Grill co-owner Knickole Barger felt the same pains as most local restaurant owners when the pandemic hit her operations full-force in late March. Yet the resilient Sarasota native’s reaction to the unpredictable situation was to rise up.

As she quickly shifted her business to curbside pickup options at the restaurant, several regulars had already reached out, asking how they could cover the cost of feeding hospital staff through her restaurant. Barger’s ingenuity kicked in as she recognized an opportunity to help her community and keep the staff of the 19-year-old family business busy.

With a couple hundred dollars in donations, she was ready to put a plan in action but knew that it needed to be more organized for the idea to have longevity. Barger reached out to Sally Schule, director of community engagement of the Healthcare Foundation, an organization that supports Sarasota Memorial Hospital, who quickly put Barger in contact with hospital staff to implement distribution logistics.

Once she had the receiving side covered and separate accounting in place, Barger took a leap, posting a selfie-video from her own backyard announcing her campaign for donations from the community to feed frontline workers. The video had more than 10,000 views on Facebook and officially kicked off the #ShareTheLoveNot-TheVirus campaign. The cause garnered more than $20,000 in donations from businesses and individuals in its first month and a half.

“In six weeks, we fed more than 4,000 people with individualized box meals,” says Barger.

At first, Knick’s Tavern handled all the meals and deliveries thanks to a staff team Barger says was proud to be part of something community-oriented and able to help.

“They were there helping me assemble boxes in the middle of their normal curbside shifts and proudly loading it up knowing they wouldn’t make a dime [in tips] off that specifically.”

But as donations poured in, the workload grew to 14 deliveries a week—that’s 80 meals, two times a day, seven days a week. Barger needed help so she enlisted several area restaurants including the Oasis Café (as the former 1812 Osprey), Gecko’s Grill Hillview, Morton’s Market, Pacific Rim, Origin Pizza and food truck Ustabeez Mac n Stuff. Although Knick’s still took on most meals and deliveries, the other restaurants took turns filling in the rest.

“It brought us closer together because we all had a common goal, which was to keep our employees and our families fed and keep our door open in a way that saved our business,” Barger says of the sense of community she felt among the restaurants.

In addition to hospital employees, the #ShareTheLoveNotTheVirus campaign has made donations to the Sarasota Police Department and contributed prepared meals for organizations assisting families in need, such as Big Brother Big Sisters of the Suncoast and Girls Inc. of Sarasota County. Overall, Barger’s campaign became a shining example of how community and business can work together in times of need.

“I think the people in the community who have contributed donations felt like they were doing something good because they were stuck at home and yet they were positively affecting people at the hospital who couldn’t stay home,” says Barger. “It also kept us busy and our employees busy.”

Despite its quick success, Barger feels the uncertainly caused by the virus has prompted a fizzle in campaign donations. However, with an uptick of cases and hospitalizations, there is now more need than ever to support the front-line workers of our community and keep them fed. Barger is ready to go back to work on it.

“We need more people to start contributing to start this thing back up full-fledged again,” she says. “It wasn’t about the recognition; it was about knowing that we contributed.”

To contribute visit top10sarasota.com/knicks-shop or contact Knick’s Tavern at 941-955-7761.