Dallas’s ritzy French restaurant Bullion is dramatically reducing its hours and paying its employees to engage in community service in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
As of last week, Bullion has temporarily eliminated lunch service, and will only be open for dinner on Fridays and Saturdays until further notice, according to a press release. While the restaurant is closed, its owners say that Bullion staff will engage in a variety of “community service activities in the Dallas area, including helping with grocery shopping and errands for the elderly and high-risk individuals.”
The restaurant also says that it will continue to pay all of its staff, “regardless of tenure, position, or wage,” and that its employees will split their time between community service projects at area nonprofits and the restaurant for the duration of the closure. Employees who are members of high-risk groups, including the immunocompromised and the elderly, will be given work-from-home roles.
Thanks to its deep-pocketed owners, Bullion is uniquely positioned to make such major changes to its business model during the coronavirus crisis. The restaurant is held by the Labora Group, a company that “oversees the diverse businesses and philanthropic activities” of the extravagantly wealthy Hartland-Mackie family, which dabbles extensively in “real estate, startup, and private equity investment.”