"At Seven Reasons in Washington D.C., business as usual has taken on new meaning. The MICHELIN Plate restaurant opened in April last year with a menu of inventive pan-Latin dishes designed by Enrique Limardo, a Venezuelan chef who has experience cooking in some of Spain’s best and most innovative kitchens. Prior to opening Seven Reasons, Limardo was making a name for himself at the restaurant Alma Cocina Latina in Baltimore. At the time, Ezequiel Vázquez-Ger was just a loyal customer and a fan of Limardo’s cooking. Eventually, Vázquez-Ger convinced Limardo to join him for a venture in D.C. and thus, Seven Reasons was born. This spring, when D.C.’s stay-at-home orders were announced in response to the spread of Covid-19 and the restaurant industry shuddered to a halt, Vázquez-Ger and Limardo pulled the breaks on whatever momentum they had built since opening just over one year earlier. Seven Reasons did not offer takeout pre-pandemic, so Vázquez-Ger and Limardo immediately began contemplating their next move. “I thought the pandemic was going to be a two-week thing,” says Vázquez-Ger. “But, Enrique said we have to do it.” It was then, perhaps, that Vázquez-Ger realized the significance of the moment. “We see crises as opportunities, and we believe that this crisis in particular was an opportunity to change a broken system,” he wrote in an email. Vázquez-Ger has a background in economics and political consulting. It gives him a unique perspective: When describing the restaurant's shift to takeout and other new sources of revenue, he talked about theLean Startupmethod of rapid viability testing. He also believes wholeheartedly in fiscal transparency. At one point in a recent conversation, he mentioned wanting to share the restaurant’s P&L sheets with customers so they can see exactly how slim the margins are. It’s a strategy that only works when you have little to hide, and Vázquez-Ger and Limardo certainly are wearing their hearts on their sleeves. In their “Covid Diaries," - Mahira Rivers
