In the days after COVID-19 shut down D.C.’s dining scene, chef Christian Irabién changed course. The virus tabled his plans to open an unannounced restaurant with Comet Ping Pong and Buck’s Fishing & Camping, but he still had the physical space. Even more pressing, Irabién says, was his desire to help—to do something for the people he normally fed and worked alongside.

The former Oyamel sous chef came up with Muchas Gracias, a mercadito and Latin American eatery now open in Chevy Chase. The pop up will offer delivery and takeout grocery items, a forthcoming CSA, and a daily menu culled from the flavors of Irabién’s childhood in Chihuahua, Mexico, and southern Texas. One of the market’s main motives will be to support the area’s immigrant families with free delivered meals and farm pantry boxes as business gets underway.

“We just went back to doing the only thing we know how to do really well, which is to show up and cook food and provide for our neighbors and community and support our staff by directly creating a few jobs,” says Irabién. “We tried to pull away from being chef-driven or high concept and turning it into food that was just homey and warm and felt good.”

Muchas Gracias has culinary elements of a “borderless” cooking concept Irabién planned to open soon in partnership with Buck’s and Comet. That restaurant came after planned locations for his fine-dining “passion project” Amparo Fondita fell through in Mount Pleasant and at Latin American market La Cosecha. With that plan on hold, Irabién connected with Buck’s and Comet, who offered space for a side project.

Though Amparo is on pause for now, the “the idea that has lived inside me since I was a young cook” will come to life when time and the right location allows, Irabién says. He still offers catering and private events under the brand.

The unnamed sit-down restaurant in Chevy Chase was to be a more refined, upscale take on northern Mexican and southwestern American dishes, with a cocktail program heavy on mezcal and tequila. They were months into renovations and training when coronavirus forced the team to regroup as a “big commissary kitchen.” Their plan for Muchas Gracias, which created six jobs for furloughed employees, is a shift to casual home cooking that will eventually incorporate the many Latin Americans cultures of those they work with—”Honduran, Guatemala, Brazil, Costa Rica, Bolivia, you name it,” says Irabién.

The chef isn’t alone in his decision to start a community-minded market. In recent weeks, other D.C. restaurants have introduced grocery offerings as a vehicle for alternate food access. Founding Farmers, Big Bear Café, Neighborhood Restaurant Group, and many others are selling pantry staples, spirits, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer alongside takeaway menus or as standalone projects. Hook Hall has care kits and meals for industry workers, and Walter’s Sports Bar rolled out a weekly CSA to “alleviate strain on the grocery stores,” according to their website.

Muchas Gracias is contactless, meaning the public won’t be allowed inside. Patrons can order meals, grocery items, or CSA boxes online or over the phone, then pick them up at a table outside the restaurant or choose delivery. The main menu will have plenty of classics like quesadillas, short-rib taco platters, and slow-cooked Chihuahua carnitas, a “family taco night” ($55) with all the fixings, garlic rice, homemade tortillas, and a pint of Rancho Gordo domingo rojo beans, and orders of tres leches cake.

Many dishes use fresh vegetables from local farms Muchas Gracias is trying to support in partnership with Friends & Family Meal, including a southwest masa ball soup with green squash and snow peas, a kale salad tossed in Buck’s Caesar dressing that nods to Irabien’s years cooking in California, and a fiery mushroom and cactus-leaf stew. The mercadito swaps cocktails for fizzy fountain drinks like Jarritos and Mexican Coca-Cola.

Muchas Gracias hopes to finalize the grocery items and CSA boxes in the next two weeks. As part of the model, Irabién says anyone who purchases a CSA box will have the option to buy a premium one at higher cost and the extra proceeds will create a box for a family in need. A portion of the pop-up’s proceeds will go to Tables Without Borders and Friends & Family Meal to support workers in need.

Irabién, an immigrant himself, has been an ardent supporter of culinary-related service projects. After spending his formative years in El Paso, Texas, and cooking in other parts of the country, including a heavy hand in opening Mexican restaurant Calavera in the Bay Area and stints with humanitarian chef José Andrés, he helped to create and direct the curriculum at La Cocina VA, a bilingual culinary education program in Arlington for Latino immigrants interested in hospitality.

As the pandemic spread last month, he saw that information about medical, financial, and food relief efforts available to restaurant owners and service industry workers was “disseminated in ways that weren’t necessarily reaching the Latin American immigrant and undocumented community, whether because of language barriers or access to information online,” says Irabién.

The emergency relief bill passed by the D.C. Council last week initially included cash assistance to undocumented people in the District. Just days before the bill was passed, Chairman Phil Mendelson removed the provision, prompting backlash from immigrant activist groups. Mendelson promised during last week’s council meeting that “there continue to be discussions” about providing relief for undocumented people. Later that week, Events DC, the city’s quasi-public entertainment authority, approved a relief bill that included $5 million in assistance for undocumented hospitality workers.

The chef created resource pages on Medium in both English and Spanish as a start to link workers to resources for immigrant and undocumented workers, but he hopes Muchas Gracias will allow them to provide more direct support. Irabién didn’t have to think too hard about the name for the mercadito.

“It’s a thank you to people for always supporting us,” says Irabién. “They give us a platform to do what we love by coming to eat our food. But it’s also muchas gracias to the community that shows up to work every day—coming in to bus tables, wash, cook, prep, serve, do the heavy lifting a restaurant requires. They’re the ones who show up, so we’re trying to show up for them in this time.”

Muchas Gracias DC is located at 5029 Connecticut Ave NW. Hours are 4 p.m.-8:45 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. Delivery is available on Caviar and Doordash and pickup by calling 202-244-5000 or online at Muchas Gracias’ website or Chow Now.

This post has been updated to indicate that Christian Irabién created the culinary curriculum at La Cocina VA.

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