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Tracking Reopening Around the World

From the Editor: Everything you missed in food news last week

June 2 in Lagos
Adetona Omokanye

This post originally appeared on June 20, 2020 in Amanda Kludt’s newsletter “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world each week. Read the archives and subscribe now.


I’m going to hop right into the news this week but have two suggested tiny actions. One is to support the last day of the Bakers Against Racism bake sale. Based in D.C. but now taking place worldwide, It’s a decentralized week-long bake sale where any home or pro baker can participate to raise money for charities fighting for social justice. It’s too late for many of the home bakers, but a lot of bakeries are participating for walk-ins.

More importantly, fill out the census. There is no easier way to advocate for social justice, health care, and investment in your community than getting yourself counted. I’m especially talking to all my Brooklyn readers, because we are failing at self-reporting in a major way (well below the national, New York, and borough averages). If we don’t step up, we are going to lose out on major dollars for our friends and neighbors in our communities.


On Eater

— Here’s what dining looked like in cities around the world on one day in June.

Reopening: Seattle dining rooms, pool parties in Vegas, and outdoor dining in Philly, San Diego, and SF. Meanwhile New York reopens for outdoor dining on Monday.

Backtracking in Texas: Austin is asking restaurants to reduce capacity from 75% to 25% for dine-in service and requiring all customers to wear masks after cases spiked; bars and restaurants in San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston are closing because of employees testing positive for COVID; and Dallas sucks at social distancing.

... And New York: Governor Cuomo is threatening to revoke liquor licenses of bars that don’t enforce social distancing in front of their property, and the sponsor of a bill extending to-go drinks well beyond the pandemic is reconsidering in response to the city’s party vibes.

Closures: Nix, Aquagrill, and locations of Xi’an Famous Foods in New York; Be More Pacific and Daruma in Austin; Le Caprice and Indian Accent in London; and almost all Pok Pok locations and many Blue Star Donuts locations in Portland.

— Restaurant employees are becoming the unexpected and uncomfortable enforcers of mask etiquette.

— Say goodbye to the hotel breakfast buffet.

— Damn look at all the fancy-ass takeout Michelin-starred restaurants in New York are doing.

— I loved this op-ed from Marcus Samuelsson about how his regulars shifted from pre-COVID to post-COVID and how they changed once again as the pandemic raged on.

A hand holds up a plate of food right next to a sign that says “The Whole World Is Watching!”
A stand with free food at the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) in Seattle
Chona Kasinger

All the brands came out in solidarity, but dismantling white supremacy would “require dismantling everything that allows many of these brands to exist and profit the way they have for decades.”

— Charleston Food & Wine Festival will no longer host events on plantations.

— A major LA restaurateur left his restaurants after a photo of him in blackface at a Halloween party surfaced (on Eater LA).

— Writer and chef Amethyst Ganaway on what restaurants can and should be doing to support protesters and the black community.

— Lauded Chicago restaurant Fat Rice has closed following employee complaints about the culture fostered by chef and owner Abe Conlon.

— Early Black Panther Party member Billy X Jennings on how he helped feed a movement.

— How cooks, restaurant owners, and gardeners are feeding protesters in Seattle.

— Opening: Strings of Life in LA; a new location of Hewn Bread in Chicago; a new gay bar in Vegas; Uno Mas in Dallas; Mercy Me in D.C.

— To watch: Our newest series with chef Nyesha Arrington, this one shot all remotely.


Off Eater