![]() “My pivot came from cooking, which is something I love. She lost two grandparents to COVID in April 2020. It’s how people feel the local vibration of life.”įor Benjamin, the pandemic focused her on family and cooking. “One of the things we’ve seen with the pandemic is that food is part of so many industries. We tried to help restaurants pivot to reopening and the new reality of masks, takeout and delivery, and outdoor dining,” she says. “Being a mom with two small kids and trying to keep my staff employed, it was a scary time,” Benjamin says. ![]() Just as Benjamin and her team were planning the next restaurant week, COVID hit. “I wanted to get out of the stressful meeting planning world, make a difference locally and concentrate on my family,” she says.īenjamin purchased First Bite in spring 2019 from Kate Lacroix and Josh Dinar, who had nurtured the event since 2005, and Benjamin produced a highly successful restaurant week that fall. Critically, she also connected to the larger food community as a volunteer at the Growe Foundation’s Garden to Table program connecting children to nature. After working for a large national events company, she ran her own Boulder events company. Jessica Benjamin moved to Boulder in 2004, and was The Kitchen’s marketing director as it rapidly grew. It made us realize we needed to cook better meals for ourselves,” Benjamin says. She said: ‘I just wanted you to know we’re here for you,’ and that was just so heartwarming. She dropped off beef stew hot in a crockpot on the doorstep. ![]() A friend dropped by-really someone who we weren’t really close to before that. Frankly, it changed everything in our lives,” she says. His dad and brother and their girlfriends were killed in a plane crash in Santa Monica. Jessica Benjamin is no stranger to tragedy, the PTSD it inflicts, and the path out of it. “Particularly now, when they’ve been getting battered for two years by COVID, the restaurants were the first ones to say ‘yes.’ It was amazing to see how quickly the industry coalesced and worked together-restaurants, caterers, farmers and bakeries-to feed the families,” Benjamin says. Since Jessica Benjamin bought First Bite, Boulder County’s annual restaurant week, the community and restaurant industry have experienced some tragedies and disasters, the latest being the Marshall Fire, which destroyed 1,000 homes in Louisville and Superior.Īs always, it was the food people who came through. It’s a sense of exploration where you discover your neighborhood,” she says. Food is about culture, so it’s very personal. In times of trouble, as well as every single day, “food always helps,” Jessica Benjamin says,
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