Chicago chef Rick Bayless starts effort to help laid-off food workers

Chef Rick Bayless (Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for NYCWFF / Getty Images)

Celebrity chef Rick Bayless has launched an effort to help restaurant workers who have been laid off during the coronavirus pandemic.

One of the award-winning Chicago chef’s restaurants that’s currently closed, Frontera Grill, will host an operation paying laid-off workers to make 30-pound boxes of food, including produce, bread and meat. The boxes will be available for pickup at restaurants throughout the city.

“This project can touch the lives of many thousand displaced workers,” Bayless said in a news release.

The plan is to process 800 boxes each week. The effort is being funded by a $250,000 anonymous gift in partnership with US Foods, a Rosemont-based food distributor.