Double Duty

By: Alexandra W. Jones

You have to love what you do to work 60 hours plus per week, like Sofia Baltopoulos and Kate Hiltz. The pair are co-owners who double as line cooks, marketers, and managers for Philly’s vegan diner The Tasty.

“Kate and I both work pretty much nonstop,” says Baltopoulos, who lives just a few blocks down from the restaurant.

She and Hiltz, who manages New Jersey punk band The Bouncing Souls and owns Chunksaah Records, just celebrated their fourth year serving vegan comfort food from The Tasty’s quaint corner property, which sits caddy-corner from Columbus Square in East Passyunk. They opened the diner in 2016 along with their friend Ben Pierce, former guitarist and keyboardist in the Philly based band Restorations.

While the work is challenging, Hiltz says, it’s also incredibly rewarding. The pair were excited to talk with Grid about what it’s like to run the business and give readers a look behind the scenes. The following interview has been edited for length, style, and clarity.

Can you briefly tell me The Tasty’s origin story?

SB: Kate and I had been cooking together doing pop-ups at punk shows when we found out that Atlantic Pizza—the diner that was in our space for 28 years before us—was up for sale. We had only dreamed about opening a place together at this point and went to look at the space mostly just for kicks. We fell in love and the rest was history. We didn’t have previous plans to open a diner specifically, but we did what made sense for this space. There are so many diners around in both Jersey and Philly but pretty much none of them have vegan options. We wanted to create a space where anyone and everyone could come and feel comfortable and find something that they love.

We did all of the renovations ourselves. Kate put in new floors in the back kitchen. She retiled the bathroom and installed a new sink and toilet. We installed all of the equipment ourselves, did all of the painting, and our friend Ben put in new counters.

KH: Sofia and I met through mutual friends in the music scene and had been cooking together and doing fun bakery pop-ups and snack bar takeovers and things like that. We both love to feed people and make massive amounts of comfort food and then hide in the kitchen. Our other mutual friend Ben posted a picture of the diner (then Atlantic Pizza) for sale by the owners who wanted to retire basically saying “Who wants to open a multi-roaster coffee shop in this cool neighborhood place with me?” Sofia was like “Uhh, me and Kate do?” We went to look at it and started talking with the owners (now our landlords) right away. 

I’m kind of hokey and believe in fate and just knowing something is right, so we just opened the diner. The place itself, the layout and location and history, spoke to what kind of place it would be. 

What roles do you each serve in the business? How would you describe each other’s personalities and how do they contribute to the business?

SB: Kate and I both work pretty much non-stop. I work earlier mornings. My prep shift starts at 3 a.m.. We both work full days cooking during the hours we are open, and she does her prep shift late night, often until midnight or later. 

We each have our own cooking station. Mine is the main station with the grill, sandwich station and fryer. Hers is set up with the waffle iron, griddles for pancakes and french toast—also the salads are made back there. 

We both do all of the prep, I spend a lot of time chopping veggies and making endless amounts of tofu scramble, she makes lots and lots of batters and doughs. We, especially I, love cleaning, so we both do lots of fun side work every week. I know most owners might find that to be below them, but I love degreasing my hood filters and cleaning my fryer every other day.

I’m a virgo and insane, so most would consider me “the boss,” even though Kate is older and probably much wiser, and we are absolutely equals. I love organizing, making lists, working on projects. 

“We love this location, we love the kids stopping in after school for a treat, the neighbors coming everyday for coffee on the way to work, the people from down the street who come every Saturday for breakfast on their day off. We just love South Philly and are grateful to be here.”

We both have very high standards and are extremely particular about the way things get done, which works out well because we are pretty much always on the same page. We both genuinely love working and have a deeply ingrained work ethic, so we both pull our weight and will do anything for the diner no matter how difficult it is. Kate is very handy, so we always count on her when something breaks, if there is a flood, any sort of emergency like that, she gets the call.

When I am not at the diner, I also do most office work, so I do payroll, bookkeeping, scheduling, and we both split the ordering. Kate does a lot of shopping, she gets all of our drinks, there are certain things we still buy in stores because the quality and price is better.

KH: We are both the main prep cooks and line cooks and handle or oversee all aspects of running the business between us. Sofia does the vast majority of management and officework and all of the social media. I do most of the shopping and maintenance stuff. We both have too much to do all of the time. As far as our personalities go, we are pretty opposite. Sofia is a firecracker. She would yell “I am Greek” and “Do your job!” like the Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick. I am way more chill but sometimes mopey or at least perceived that way. We go well together because we have strong work ethics and beliefs and are extremely stubborn and opinionated but somehow allow/believe that the other person will stay up to the task of sharing the burden and be able to talk about everything. We both love football and see weekend brunch as “game day.”

Who else supports you? Do you have family members working with you or friends or loyal employees?

SB: We have a very small staff, but they are all very loyal and important to The Tasty. While Kate and I do most of the cooking and prepping, we have a full staff of baristas who run the Front of House part of the diner. We don’t really know that much about coffee, so they really pull a lot of the weight when it comes to that. We have a few Back of House employees who are trained to work our stations so that we can have days off. 

KH: During the COVID-19 shutdown, we agreed early on that we would stay open as long as we could as long as no one got the virus. We told everyone they could choose to work or not. Three of our employees have stayed on, under strange circumstances and hours and trials, and they are so valuable. Shout out to Jordan, Suzie, and Matt.

Do you have any sort of social mission connected to your business?

SB: Each year, we choose a cause that is important to us and run a fundraiser for it. This year, we chose to raise money for an incredible organization called YEAH Philly (Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout) which is a community-based nonprofit working to reduce community violence and street involvement among teens ages 13 to 19. We were able to raise $3,200 dollars in just one day. Wwe donated 100 percent of sales on the day we ran the fundraiser. 

Aside from that, we are obviously vegan, so we love to make delicious vegan food accessible to our community.

KH: Feed The People is sort of our general all-encompassing term for how on the same page we are about using our “punk” ethics and education to work in every way possible towards the greater good.

How does the diner usually operate and how has it been operating the past few months or so?

SB: Normally, the Tasty is typically open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the weekends. We run a limited menu everyday until 9 a.m., which is when our full breakfast and lunch menu begins. 

It is counter service only, so you come and order at the counter and your name is called when your food comes up. You bus your own table at the end, to keep everything as efficient as possible. We are in a tiny space, so even though we have considered having a waitstaff, it just doesn’t make sense for us. It is an extremely laid back environment, we really get to know our regulars and we love working and being there. Everything is made to order, and we make all of our own baked goods and donuts in house everyday. 

We chose to stay open during the entirety of the COVID-19 shutdown. We stopped letting customers inside before the government told us that was what we had to do. We are down to just five of us working, Kate and I work open to close every day. 

The way that we run things now is we do call ahead phone orders for pickup, so the customer calls, places the order, pays over the phone and then comes to pick it up. We keep the door closed and locked at all times, and when the customers arrive, we go to the door and get their name so that we can bring the order out to them. We have a pretty smooth system at this point, since we have been at it for so long, but it definitely took a week or two. 

We went from doing about 80-90 percent dine in orders, to doing 100 percent take out. We only have one phone, so when it’s busy on the weekends we have one person on the phone nonstop. The reason we are doing this instead of using a delivery service like Grubhub or Caviar is because we want to provide the best service we can, and by using those companies we have no control over what’s happening. They also take a cut of the money and we are not only not making money right now, we are losing it. 

KH: The diner usually operates in a bell curve that is Sofia and I working many prep hours to get ready for and recover from the marathon known as the weekend. Other staff work shifts manning the various stations during the slower shifts, and we have extra people at each station or overlapping on the busier days. We have a very small kitchen and only one table, so our hours and staffing are pretty much dictated by how much we can get done while we are closed to prepare for “game day”.

The past several weeks, we have been doing pickup only, and with a vast reduction in the number of staff that wanted to continue working. We have amended our hours to only be open five days a week so that Sofia and I could get some days off and stay somewhat sane and only 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.. It’s harder to do takeout orders. We both feel like our menu is made for dine-in and just isn’t the same without our cute plates and freshness. 

We still work a ton of hours, but it’s really hard to know what to prep or what to make and it’s been increasingly difficult to get staple food items from our distributors and usual channels, which adds a whole other level of stress to wondering if we can make enough money to pay all of our bills and maybe be able to put together a paycheck. 

What has been most challenging about adapting the diner to the COVID-19 shutdown and what has been most rewarding?

SB: The most challenging, aside from the obvious financial issues, has been doing all take out. We typically don’t love doing take out- I take pride in every plate I make, and putting food in a box just isn’t the same. We also love having customers in here! It’s a whole feel to the restaurant that we lost when we stopped having customers dine-in.

The most rewarding part has been seeing how loyal our regulars are. We see some of the same people multiple times a week and it really makes us feel good. Knowing that we have enough support to continue to do this even during the hardest times we have ever faced makes it all worth it. Also, having our tiny team come together and really step it up to create a system that works made me feel like we really do have the best employees. 

KH: The most challenging has been the uncertainty about supply problems and figuring out how to stay in business while we “Feed The People” and try to be a comfort to our community while everyone faces these uncertainties. The most rewarding has been to just be able to come to work and still work hard and with due diligence towards our goal, to feel united in our efforts and feel like we can handle just about anything if we put our minds to it. 

Could you talk about The Tasty’s role in the vegan community and the South Philly community at large?

SB: We find that the best way to help people discover veganism is by making the food accessible to them, by making foods that are both familiar to them and affordable. 

We are not here to force anyone into aligning their beliefs with ours, but instead are hopeful that by providing this space, we will find customers who aren’t necessarily vegan enjoying the food we prepare for them. We are here to Feed the People, whether they are vegan or not. There are not a ton of vegan breakfast options in the city, so we felt like we hope to be filling that void for some people.

We love this location, we love the kids stopping in after school for a treat, the neighbors coming everyday for coffee on the way to work, the people from down the street who come every Saturday for breakfast on their day off. We just love South Philly and are grateful to be here.

KH: We like to think that we provide a service to everyone: tasty plant-based meals in a welcoming but quick-paced atmosphere—a place to be part of every time you come by.