Brookline's Menuette offers pay what you can meal delivery
Chef Christian Schulz said he always planned on opening a pay-what-you-can food store—he just didn’t think it would be so soon.
“I’ve been sort of casually daydreaming about it for years,” he said.
About two years ago, Schulz and his business partner Rebecca Nicholson began Menuette, a pop-up dinner series. They were scheduled to open a brick-and-mortar location in Brookline in May — and then the coronavirus hit. With the looming potential food crisis, Schulz said they instead shifted their efforts into the online pay-what-you-can community kitchen.
“It was one of the things we wanted to do eventually with the hope that people who need food can get it,” he said. “It wasn’t supposed to start for a while.”
Menuette’s online food store currently includes soups, buttermilk biscuits, various types of fresh pastas, sauces and condiments. Customers choose the quantity and what they want to pay. Price tiers include free, low cost and retail cost, as well as donation-based options for those who’d like to pay a little extra to help offset the cost of the free and low-cost meals.
There’s also a fixed-price off-menu Soup of the Week subscription available.
Orders must be received by 5 p.m. on Friday for delivery the following Monday.
Originally they were going to give customers the choice of picking up their meals, but instead opted for no-contact deliveries in keeping with social distancing practices.
“We didn’t want to give people a reason to leave their homes,” Schulz said. “Our customers need to be safe and healthy. We need to be safe and healthy.”
Schulz and Nicholson delivered 225 total meals this past Monday. Their delivery area covers South Pittsburgh and South Hills neighborhoods.
As demand increases, they may look into adding more delivery days, but Schulz and Nicholson will be the only ones transporting meals, at least for the foreseeable future, in an effort to limit the number of people coming in contact with the food and delivery vehicle. In between waves of deliveries, they are sanitizing their vehicle. They’re also checking their temperatures twice each day, among other safety measures.
“We wish we could accept help. We can’t risk bringing other people on right now,” Schulz said.
To place an order, visit menuettepgh.com/store.
Kristina Serafini is a TribLive photojournalist covering Southwestern Pennsylvania. She is a Pittsburgh native and Point Park graduate. Her work has been honored locally and nationally. She can be reached at kserafini@triblive.com.
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