BOSTON (WHDH) - A Boston restaurant that has chosen to go into “hibernation” is offering up freezer space to the city of Boston to store vaccines.
Milk Street Cafe owner Marc Epstein has all the space needed to lend a helping hand to get everyone vaccinated after he opted to temporarily close his restaurant back in October.
He said he hopes it will be able to reopen soon as a storage and vaccination site.
In a public plea of Twitter, Epstein wrote:
“Dear Gov. Baker & Mayor Walsh, We would like offer you our temporarily closed large cafe space Downtown w/2 walk-in freezers & 8 walk-in fridges + top org crew to expedite the #vaccine rollout. Free. #BringBackBoston”
Dear Gov. Baker & Mayor Walsh,
We would like offer you our temporarily closed large cafe space Downtown w/2 walk-in freezers & 8 walk-in fridges + top org crew to expedite the #vaccine rollout. Free. #BringBackBoston @MassGovernor @Mass_HPC @Marty_Walsh @MilkStreetCafe pic.twitter.com/PkxHd18vze— Milk Street Cafe (@MilkStreetCafe) January 3, 2021
“I would be happy instead of sitting on our hands doing nothing, getting people vaccinated,” he said.
Epstein said his empty freezers and refrigerators would be ideal for storing the Moderna vaccine which the Center for Disease Control says must be kept between 36 and 46 degrees.
“I just don’t understand I would feel we should have vaccination locations open 24/7 until everyone is vaccinated,” he said.
The Boston Public Health Commission said they are grateful to the Milk Street Cafe for their offer.
“One of the guidance is you cant mix the vaccines with food storage, not yet, but we are starting to plan to reach out to large employers both in terms of vaccinating staff and what kind of storage opportunities they have,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders said at a press conference on Monday.
Epstein said he hopes his offer will not only get his cafe open sooner and his 72 employees back to work but also get life back to normal for everyone else.
“We are the ones who discovered the vaccine, we can’t get it into people’s arms?” he asked. “That’s what we should be doing.”
He said his daughter gave him the idea after she saw a restaurant in Scotland doing a similar thing.
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