
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Verjus was exceptionally if unusually staffed. Food runners came not just from the Jackson Square wine bar, restaurant and shop but also from Another Planet Entertainment, the concert promoter that runs the Greek Theatre, the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and the Independent, among other venues and festivals throughout the Bay Area.
The workers were ferrying paper bags full of fried chicken or arancini (mozzarella-stuffed risotto balls), plus coleslaw, honey-smothered buttermilk biscuits and more, from the commissary kitchen out to the curb, where Another Planet, in partnership with Touring Professionals Alliance Kitchen, had set up tents.
Before long, the invitees, all live music industry workers, trickled in to receive their free meals. They were stagehands, concessionaires and technicians; bartenders, caterers and stage managers; security, medical and janitorial staff.
n normal times, they might not be among the regular clientele of Chef Michael Tusk, who with wife Lindsay runs Quince and Cotogna in San Francisco, in addition to Verjus. But for five weeks, through Thursday, May 20, these workers are the beneficiaries of a partnership between Another Planet and Touring.