Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Daniel Boulud, Chef and Restaurateur, discuss the state of the restaurant industry and how he is saving jobs amid the pandemic.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: COVID-19 has hammered the restaurant industry. One in five restaurants in the US has already gone out of business because of the pandemic. For many restaurant owners, they've had to get creative and find alternative ways to do business, including the award-winning chef and restaurateur, Daniel Boulud, who joins us now.

Chef, it's a delight to have you here with us. I know you own more than a dozen restaurants. About half of them are in New York City, where we still do not have indoor dining. Your restaurants are fine dining, white tablecloth restaurants. How do you translate that into outside dining, outing on-- outside--

DANIEL BOULUD: A sidewalk cafe. [CHUCKLES]

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: --you know, when eating outside on the street?

DANIEL BOULUD: Yes, well, you know, it does-- this pandemic has been teaching us a lot, and for many of my colleagues as well, on how to rebalance and find opportunity and ideas to continue to do what we love the most and continue to engage with our customers. And continue to bring the service we are known for, but in a different way-- in different price, different way.

And we have created those bungalows outside of Daniel. So each table will have a privacy of a bungalow. And it's-- they are heated. They are warm. They are safe. They are-- and they really work out. And it helped me save jobs. And I think that was very, very important.

At this time, of course, we want to save the business, because it's going to be saving the team and saving the job. And not every restaurant reopened. But we are looking forward to reopening them all, for sure.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah, how many of your restaurants are-- are open right now? And have you had to let staff go, chef?

DANIEL BOULUD: Of course, of course. I have two restaurants open right now-- Daniel and Bar Boulud on the West Side. Boulud Sud next door to Bar Boulud on 64 and Broadway is closed right now and will reopen certainly as we have the right to reopen inside. But Bar Boulud, we have a big terrace there, and we built what we call a chalet outside there. So it's very comfortable, very warm.

And then at Daniel, we built the bungalows outdoors. And then Café Boulud is in the Blantyre in Massachusetts-- Lenox, Massachusetts, in the Relais Chateaux. And it will reopen eventually toward this year-- late this year. DB Bistro, we don't know, it's midtown.

But then I'm also working on a new restaurant called Le Pavillon at One Vanderbilt. And One Vanderbilt is on 42nd and Madison. And One Vanderbilt's next to Grand Central. And that restaurant will open also in 2021.

So I'm very hopeful. The vaccine is coming in, and vaccine-- and a lot of people are getting vaccine. And I'm very hopeful that New York City will come back strong in late-- I mean, maybe not until mid or late '21. And my other restaurants, around the world, many are open-- Singapore, Palm Beach. Canada is still on the lockdown, so it's challenging. But we're hopeful.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah, that One Vanderbilt building really is gorgeous. So that's exciting that you're going to be opening at that location in Manhattan. I know that you've had to get creative. And you now have these specially-curated meal kits, so that all of us can cook like you, I guess, chef. And you've partnered with Goldbelly to deliver those meal kits.

How is that going? And is that something that was born out of this pandemic for you? Or were you planning to do that anyway?

DANIEL BOULUD: Absolutely. No, I think, chefs, we have always gave cooking class. We have always done cooking class. We have always done-- you know, we go to food festival, and we do all kinds of things. We don't usually do it in the restaurants. But with this pandemic, I think it took us-- I mean, it gave us the opportunity to rethink everything.

And, of course, the takeout business is huge. And locally in New York, we're using a different platform-- Grubhub and Caviar and [INAUDIBLE] and [INAUDIBLE] for private delivery of directly from the restaurant-- Bar Boulud and Daniel. But also, nationally, we're using Goldbelly. And we are making a lot of prepared dish or sweets and dessert. And that has been fantastic.

But also, during the pandemic, I was doing a lot of class-- private class for corporation, private class for partners, partners in brands like Coffee Lavazza or the different partners in the beverage business as well. And always try to raise money for the foundation-- for a foundation. And that was either City Meals on Wheels, Food First Foundation, or Hand in Hand, my private foundation for my staff.

And after the holiday, as we got very busy with the shipping of things and running the restaurant, I decided to do also private class at home. So basically, you can go on danielboulud.com, and you go on the event calendar, and you can see all the classes we offer.

If you don't live in New York, it's $60, the class. And you can-- we will send you the market list with all the ingredients, the pre-preparation to make, and how to make the recipe. And you'll do it with me. And if you're in New York, and you don't want to bother going to the market to buy the ingredients, we can prepare the box and all that. So that is $175, I think, for the box. And that you get food for two people, plus the cooking class together.

And it has been-- the first class is in four hours-- three hours-- three hours. So you're going to have to subscribe to next Thursday, and for the next eight Thursdays at 6:00 PM, to be able to join me in the upcoming class.

So we are all going to-- always going to be doing a classic-- a classic French dishes. Tonight, I'm doing a steak tartare. I'm doing my grandmother's favorite salad. I'm doing also a little sweet, and then a cocktail or so, French 75. And then next week, we'll have a poulet basquaise, which is basically a roasted casserole, chicken casserole, with a lot of peppers and tomato, and it's delicious. And it's--

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Oh, my goodness, your making us all hungry over here at Yahoo Finance. And we should mention, these virtual classes which begin today and are going on for the next few weeks, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to City Meals on Wheels, which I know is very close to your heart. So Chef Daniel Boulud--

DANIEL BOULUD: Very much.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: --thanks so much for joining us, and best of luck to you.

DANIEL BOULUD: So today, we have already raised hundreds of meals for today, with the class today. And every class [INAUDIBLE] will bring a warm meal to a New Yorker in need.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I don't know how you can't get on board with that. Sounds good to us. Thanks again, chef. We'll talk to you soon.