Michael wears a perma-smile with a habitual refrain of the phrase "truthfully" in all his stories.

“Truthfully, I got here by accident.”

His humility strikes in balance with his growing wisdom, giving anyone in his presence a sense of confidence and inspiration.

"You're supposed to have a map of what a successful restaurant was going to be. Now COVID happens… everything that you've learned or if you thought you know gets thrown out the window."

While many of us conjure up glamourizations of kitchen shouting matches from our favourite episodes of Chopped, the day to day life of restaurant operations is one that spans from margarines to margins. The Chef de Cuisine wears a chef's hat with a business hat right underneath it, weighing every move with their sense of taste and sense of tact.

In March 2020, COVID locked down the city. With indoor dining out of the question, Ascari mobilized its community of vendors and sister restaurants to find viable avenues for its business to continue. In thinking about the business, they were thinking about the livelihoods of their whole team.

"[Here in the kitchen], there are a lot of kids. I feel I have a responsibility in making sure that they're taken care of. [When we found out about the lock down], it was funny because I was on the phone with a lot of other people. And that is because I was kind of acting as their parents, talking about their CERB, they were talking about what was the next step? And ultimately, I felt like I had an obligation to help them out."

Their first plan of attack focused on making sure everyone was financially okay, and giftcard sales helped them get there. Together, the chefs and the events team got creative with the physical space and distribution channels available to them. They pushed forward corporate events, Ascari delivery, and other fun ways to share quality food with Torontonians.

"It was a lot of different touches everywhere. I don't think there's one deciding factor that helped us survive."

In Michael's words, the big box stores will always be fine. Heated debates fill our social media feeds – why are we closing everything but Walmart and McDonald's? In stripping away the small businesses and their stories of resilience, we are stripping away the personality of Toronto. As the pandemic endures, we are finding a mainstream energy for the trite banner of "Shop local!"

Online initiatives popped up to help people find alternatives to Amazon, aggregate local restaurants, and bring the power of scale to these owner operators who hustle on passion.

Now it’s March 2021. It's hard to believe the purgatory-like state Toronto continues to linger in. While COVID shows no mercy in its evolutions as a virus, the stories and business that make up our city evolve too. We are excited to share these stories of evolution.

Beyond the trite banner, this is a story of everything behind "Shop local!" Let's make it a real city hallmark, not just a pandemic whim.