Tampa Bay Lightning Does Impossible; 5,000 Meals In A Day

TAMPA, FL — They called it "Impossible Saturday." But the Tampa Bay Lightning and its community partners proved nothing is impossible as they prepared 5,000 meals in a single day for front-line workers in the war against the coronavirus.

On Saturday, Forbici Modern Italian restaurant co-owners Jeff Gigante and Joe Guggino along with Tampa Bay Lightning Executive Chef Waylon Nelson undertook the massive meal preparation for first responders, doctors, nurses and other professionals from 18 organizations.

Nelson can add the 5,000 meals to the thousands he's already prepared during the coronavirus pandemic.

After the National Hockey League paused play eight weeks ago, Nelson and his team transformed the kitchen at the Amalie Arena into a food production center for Feeding Tampa Bay.

At first, the Vinik Sports Group provided the funding and Feeding Tampa Bay provided the food. Then, in late March, Lightning captain Steven Stamkos announced he and his teammates were donating 500,000 meals to the food pantry as well as to furloughed part-time workers at the Amalie Arena.

"Definitely an unprecedented time in the world right now," Stamkos said. "There's a lot of uncertainty; it's a very stressful time. Little scary, but we're going to get through this together. We're going to get through this as a community."

The offer couldn't have come at a better time.

In the two months since the stay-at-home closures, Feeding Tampa Bay has seen its requests for support increase at least 100 percent, according to the organization's executive director Thomas Mantz.

"It really started with a bunch of folks flooding us with calls saying, 'Can you help us with meals?'" Mantz said. "We have Trinity Café, which does some work in preparing meals, and we quickly ramped it up to capacity, but it was nowhere near what we needed."

Delaware North, which provides concessions, catering services and operates the kitchen at Amalie Arena, donated all the excess food that would have been used during three Lightning home games.

But that proved a fraction of the meals needed throughout the community, said Delaware North Amalie Arena General Manager George Raub.

"Through those conversations with Feeding Tampa Bay, it came up that we have the culinary talent, we have the kitchen space, would we be interested in helping out and being a production center for them," said Raub. "We were happy to jump in."

Wearing face masks and standing 6 feet apart, Nelson and his team started prepping 1,000 meals a day in the arena's kitchen.

"It took the first 1,000 meals to get our feet under us and make sure we could do it in a safe, socially distanced way," Raub said.

Nelson's team added a couple more people and ramped up to 2,000 meals a day, or 10,000 a week.

The crew of seven to 10 people prepare the meals from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.

Nelson's said he's never sure what he'll be preparing that week because the food donations to Feeding Tampa Bay vary, which makes it a challenge planning menus.

"It's a starch, a veg, a protein and generally a sauce of some sort," he said.

He also makes use of the arena's hydroponic garden where he picked fresh vegetables and herbs.

For the 5,000-meal Impossible Saturday challenge, Nelson had to call in the heavy guns.

Forbici's Modern Italian restaurant owners, Jeff Gigante, Joe Guggino and Tony Muniz came up with the idea for Impossible Saturday.

Forbici Modern Italian's fast casual pizzeria at 1633 W. Snow Ave., Tampa, has been feeding the front lines throughout the pandemic, including Tampa Fire, Tampa Police Department, Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and countless hospitals.

Gigante also serves on the board of directors of WWE Superstar Titus O'Neil's Bullard Family Foundation and is accustomed to organizing large-scale events for the foundation.

The restaurateurs got a commitment from Impossible Foods, a company based in California's Silicon Valley that makes plant-based food products, which donated 5,000 of its flagship product, the Impossible Burger.

Once they had the main entree, Mr. Greens Produce provided veggies, Pepsi donated drinks, Elder Ford of Tampa provided transportation, Support the Troops donated Girl Scout cookies and Alessi Bakery donated boxes for the meals.

To assist with the massive meal preparation, the restaurant provided its own staff members and paid students from Metropolitan Ministries' Culinary Program.

Diaco Law, Diaco Institute of Plastic Surgery and Imperial Dade provided financial assistance.

Once completed, the meals were distributed to 18 organizations, including MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa General Hospital, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department, the Tampa Police Department, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, Moffitt Cancer Center and Tampa Fire Rescue.

Mantz said Feeding Tampa Bay would never have been able to keep up with the demand for meals during the pandemic without its community partners.

"There's no worse feeling in the world than not knowing where your next meal's coming from," Mantz said. "There are a lot of folks who a month ago thought they had a good, secure job and a month later are in a food line. Folks are scared. They don't know where to find support. One of the things we want to make sure we can do and one of the things our partnership with (the Lightning) helps us do is make sure people have a meal."