The Pig & the Sprout and Color Red Help Feed Bands

Andy Ganick, owner of The Pig & the Sprout restaurant, is an avid music fan. He's also friends with Eddie Roberts, guitarist for the New Mastersounds and founder of the local label Color Red. To help out musicians who have been affected by the coronavirus, the Union Station neighborhood eatery and Color Red have teamed up on Feed the Band, which invites artists to apply for a meal on the house from Pig & Sprout.

"We know that the musicians are getting hit even harder than us during this terrible pandemic, and we wanted to help them out any way we can," Ganick explains. "One way to do so would be to hire them to play in the restaurant, but since we can't do that now, we thought the least we could do is feed them! We will feed one band per day, Tuesday through Friday, until they are playing to live audiences again. And we are hoping that, when it is deemed safe, we would welcome them back into action by having thirty bands play at the Pig & the Sprout in thirty days."

The #FeedtheBand initiative is open to any musicians who are within reasonable driving distance of the Pig & the Sprout, located at 1900 Chestnut Place. If chosen as that day's winner, they can place an order between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. and pick up their dinner any time that night; they can also purchase beer and cocktails to go.

Last month, Roberts set up the Musicians Emergency Relief Fund through Color Red; his nonprofit, the Payback; and a Brooklyn-based social-justice music group, the Sound Mind Collective. Donations for musicians nationwide who are affected by coronavirus can be made at eddierobertspayback.com.