Octo Hospitality Just Keeps Swimming

Throughout what should be Doom’s Day style restaurant reporting, we find ourselves more often than not smiling (and marveling) at the ingenious ways the restaurant industry has found to stay afloat. Restaurants popping up at other restaurants! Commander’s Palace in the deli section! Toilet paper delivery by Pythian Market! Chef Andrea slinging crawfish on the street in a chef’s hat and a face mask!

We’re thrilled to see the offerings everyday, and we’re clamoring to take part in all of it. Innovation was required, and the restaurant community has delivered. Literally.

Luckily, innovation was precisely what Jamie Munoz and Cody Morgan had in mind when they teamed up in 2019 to open Octo Hospitality, their consulting and optimization firm for restaurant operations. Their formula was flawless. A native New Orleans duo, wielding resumes packed with experience running some of the most stable and successful restaurants in the city, teaming up to bring their successful formula for hospitality operations to an ever-booming New Orleans restaurant industry.

And then, the restaurant industry was blindsided. With the market for their services virtually evaporated overnight, Octo Hospitality did what they do best-they got creative.

They quickly paired up with Chef Vernell Gibson, Executive Chef of Ruth’s Chris, to lead a group of now out-of-work chefs to put together a weekly changing menu of dinner service and business lunches, Monday through Friday, available for delivery. Everything can be ordered family style for 4-6 people, or in single portions. You get a professionally cooked meal, and some of our New Orleans chefs get paid to do what they love. What could be better than that?

Well, maybe this. They’ve also found a way to step up the game for dining options in these strange times by offering in-home chef services. If the stay-at-home order has ruined some special occasion plans, the Octo team will create a personalized special menu just for you and send in one of their Covid-19 ServeSafe professional chefs to execute a restaurant quality meal for you in the safety of your own home.

If that’s not enough, their fluid situation makes them the ideal candidate for feeding the frontlines. They’ve teamed up with The Nola Doc Project to donate food to frontline healthcare workers, and are also accepting direct donations themselves to send meals to anyone at all you’d like to support in this difficult time. 

While surely not what they intended when starting the business, Octo is living up to their name and feeding the community and industry with all the tentacles they have available. To read more about how to work with them now via donation or a great meal, check out their Instagram for a weekly menu and donation updates. To read more about how to work with them later (and you should), visit their website here.