Relief potential, DashPass loopholes, CMS status quo, Samuelsson style, and more...

Family Meal - Friday, December 4th, 2020

Hello Friday,

A quick post-holiday reminder that the way this works is: Family Meal goes out on Tuesdays and Fridays, but only paying subscribers get the Tuesday edition on Tuesday. Everyone else gets it copy/pasted below (as you’ll see down there today).

If you’d like to get Tuesdays’ on Tuesdays…

A bit of politics to get through right off the bat, because as we all know, #FoodIsFiscal.

Let’s get to it…

The Relief – Headline from Jeff Stein, Mike DeBonis, and Seung Min Kim in the Washington Post: “Momentum builds for bipartisan $908 billion stimulus package as more GOP senators express support. Growing number of Democrats and Republicans say they support negotiations aimed at delivering more economic aid.”

There are a few Eater articles out there claiming this compromise bill has $300B in new PPP funding and nothing else for restaurants, but I don’t think that’s right. While it’s unlikely the industry is going to get very close to the $120B the Independent Restaurant Coalition has been hoping for, the relevant line item in the “framework” of this new bill that’s been shared with the public so far puts a $288B price tag on:

“Support for small businesses including Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), EIDL, restaurants, stages, and deductibility.”

WaPo’s Jeff Stein reports, “The centerpiece of the business aid program is expected to be another round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program,” but adds, “Part of the $288 billion would also likely be used for targeted help specifically for restaurants, which are expected to be slammed by the closure of outdoor dining in the coming winter months.”

And NB: “As with most of the bipartisan ‘framework,’ the specifics of how that funding would be apportioned remains largely unclear at the moment.” In other words, if less PPP, more RESTAURANT Act is your goal, there may still be time to push piles around in that $288B, zero sum sandbox…

On the individual level it looks like there will be $300 per week extra in federal unemployment aid, but no direct stimulus checks. Per WaPo: “One significant outstanding question facing lawmakers is whether the unemployment benefits will be made retroactive to cover prior months when jobless benefits were not being paid.”

For the Activists – Near the Capitol, Drink Company’s Derek Brown said on Twitter he is “seriously considering organizing DC bars & restaurants to deliver a few hundred thousand empty plates to Congress symbolic of loss our industry is facing and need for them to act… Anyone serious about helping please email: derek@drinkcompany.com.”

Moving on…

The Loophole – ATTN: Local Governments, Washington City Paper’s Laura Hayes reports that despite DC city council capping delivery fees in the District, DoorDash has told customers the caps do not apply to restaurants enrolled in DashPass. Per Hayes, an email sent out by the company reads: “The [fee cap] regulation is only applicable to Classic orders and does not apply to the DashPass program, which is an optional, premium offering and separate from DoorDash’s core services … Effective Wednesday, December 9th, we will begin charging DashPass orders at the contractual rate in your original agreement with DoorDash.”

Reached for comment, Matthew 19:24 said, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a tech company to accept valid government regulation.”

The Close – December 1st press release: “Uber Completes Acquisition of Postmates… The consumer-facing Postmates and Uber Eats apps will continue to run separately, supported by a… combined merchant and delivery network. In connection with the closing, Uber has signaled its commitment to the success of the restaurants and merchants who use its technology to reach customers and delivery people by announcing a national listening tour.” Next up: A blue ribbon commission on fair fees and worker’s rights!

The Pile On – The Chicago Tribune’s Josh Noel says that, “In a phone interview in September, [Acadia chef/owner Ryan McCaskey] said the array of complaints of inappropriate behavior [against him] are exaggerated or untrue, calling them ‘cancel culture piling on.’” In response, Noel’s piece immediately goes into a bulleted list of those allegations. There’s everything from slipping drugs to unsuspecting staff to being a general jerk, and if you don’t know what sexual harassment is, just about every type I can think of is on that list. Quite a culture, cancelled.

The Pile On Too – Government officials behaving badly in the time of COVID continues, with SF Mayor London Breed admitting eating at The French Laundry the night after CA gov Gavin Newsom, the Mayor of Austin flying private to Cabo and there imploring residents back in Texas to “Stay Home” via video, and many more. Honestly, there are too many stories to link here, but luckily my political Twitter account turned me on to the fact that anti-maskers in the Trump administration have been retweeting this CNN video summing up the hypocrisy. Great work, all!

The New Blood – Shout out to the Court of Master Sommeliers for hiring a fresh slate of white men to deal with their ongoing sexual harassment and diversity issues. Per Julia Moskin in the NYT: “Of the 11 new board members, three are women, and two identify as gay and two as Asian-American; seven are white men. (The two Black men who were eligible for the board did not run.) The outgoing board had two women, one Black man and no one who identified as gay among its 14 members; 11 were white men.”

If you didn’t make the board, but are still interested in a longterm, lucrative career with the Court, might I suggest: Crisis PR?

For Design Fans – Here’s the Giovanny Gutierrez photospread on Marcus Samuelsson’s new Red Rooster outpost in Miami. I have not been to the original in Harlem, but seems like he looked over a stylebook here and said “Yes!” to everything. “I’ll take the terrazzo, the concrete, and the tile; the mirrored pillars and the detailed wallpaper; the bright banquets, the Jeanneret chairs and some bent wood bistro seats if you have those too. For lighting: gimme mid-century(?) lamps on the tables, and… I don’t know, bulbs on the ceiling?” To be fair, the space is big enough to handle it, and if it fits the man, so be it!

The Media – What might not fit the man so well is his guest editorship at Bon Appétit, which so far has the new editorial team there backing away slowly from both a poorly cut BA video of a Samuelsson-hosted “holiday” house party that drew criticism for being edited in a way that made it look a bit inappropriate for these times, and a Samuelsson recipe for Haitian soup joumou which went heavy on improv in a space where the script is sacred. Zoe Haylock has details of the latter in Vulture if you need them.

And last but not least: The Lists – Forbes announced its new 30 under 30 list this week, including a Food and Drink subset that includes…. thirty names. If you made it, congrats! If you’re too old, me too! If you don’t care, you’re right! If you are young and fretting: First of all, ask a PR person what they think of Forbes, and if they don’t say, “You mean the pay-to-play inbound marketing scam site?” question their ability to place pieces. Second, remember that I’m pretty sure the 21 year-old guy running an online restaurant ordering company “armed with $3.5M from The Chainsmokers” is the scion of the couple described thusly in their NYT Vows feature:

“Mr. Guild runs a radio consulting concern, Triple Platinum, sails catamarans, looks like a young Paul Newman and enjoys outings like shark fishing in thunderstorms.
The couple met five years ago when Ms. Kotite asked him to dance at a rehearsal dinner for Ms. Harrington at the Metropolitan Club in New York. They became inseparable friends, and several months later, at Christmas time, they traveled to Moscow ‘to see the fall of Communism,’ as the bride put it. As she always does when traveling, Ms. Kotite carried several enormous suitcases, including one filled with bottles of Evian water and one filled with madcap hats.”

No dig on the young CEO, but you’re doing fine, folks.

And that’s it for today! Tuesday’s FM is pasted below, as per usual. And FYI, there is a sweet new influencers mug in the Family Meal Store today. (If you had problems with payment before, they should be fixed. I think.)

I’ll see paying subscribers here Tuesday for next Family Meal, and everyone else on Friday.

And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and Instagram, and send tips and/or several enormous suitcases, including one filled with bottles of Evian water and one filled with madcap hats to andrew@thisfamilymeal.com. If you like Family Meal and want to keep it going, please chip in here. If you got this as a forward, sign up for yourself!

Here begins the copy/paste of the Family Meal that went out Tuesday, December 1st, to paying subscribers. If you’d also like to get Tuesdays’ on Tuesdays…

Trump relief silence, CA general leadership, Law suit losses, Carman's COVID, Chang's million, and more...

Hello Tuesday,

And hello paying subscribers only!

Always a bit tough to play catch-up after the holiday, but…

Let’s get to it…

The Relief – The Tweet Heard Round The Restaurant World (Except Food Media)… Look, I get why media of any kind would have decided long ago to at least publicly ignore the outgoing president’s tweets as nothing more than background noise or false posturing, but on Saturday, Trump tweeted:

“The restaurant business is being absolutely decimated. Congress should step up and help. Time is of the essence!”

And that’s…. a call from the bully pulpit for exactly what many have been asking for! Obviously the bully pulpit is a bit tainted these days, but food writers can couch their endorsement of that statement with a million caveats about how little they trust it and/or him. Instead, they’re not mentioning it at all. I’ve tried checking around the major food sections, Eater, etc. Nada.

Guys, you can put what someone said into a headline without taking it seriously on any level. It’s easy. Here, watch:

“Tom Colicchio Thanks Trump, Suggests He Threaten GOP Senate Control Over Restaurant Aid. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.”

Easy.

That CA Leadership – “Just hours after Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl voted to ban outdoor dining at L.A. County’s 31,000 restaurants over COVID-19 safety concerns, she visited a restaurant in Santa Monica, where she dined outdoors, FOX 11 has learned on Monday.” Bill Melugin has the details there, Suzanne Goin summarized the reaction on Twitter: “The HYPOCRISY is unreal!”

And CBSLA reportsEat at Joe’s, a restaurant in Redondo Beach, is defying the outdoor dining ban and has placed a big “The French Laundry Patio Dining” banner over its own signage, “mocking Gov. Gavin Newsom for his recent attendance at a birthday party at an upscale Northern California restaurant, even as restaurants like Eat at Joe’s have faced multiple rounds of restrictions.”

“I don’t understand why the troops won’t charge?” sighed the general in the lounge.

The Suits – Meanwhile, the strategy of restaurant groups suing local governments to end shutdowns is… not going great. Sample headlines from across the country last week: “Judge denies request from San Diego businesses seeking to resume indoor operations” ; “Judge denies restaurants' request to halt [Oregon's on-site dining] freeze” ; “Judge rejects bid by St. Louis County restaurant owners to stop ban on indoor dining” ; and of course, “Judge rejects plea by restaurant group to block L.A. County ban on outdoor dining.”

The Critics – Headline in the Washington Post: “As a food writer with covid, I worried I’d lose my sense of taste. It turned out to be much worse.” Personal details from critic Tim Carman: “On Wednesday night, just 24 hours into this nightmare, I woke up around 4 a.m., feeling generally uncomfortable. I sat up in bed, and within a matter of minutes, I could feel my body start to turn against me. I felt warm, so I slid to the floor to let the hardwoods cool my skin. That’s when I experienced a pain so profound and all-encompassing I couldn’t put it into words.” NB: Carman’s wife, cocktail writer Carrie Allan, was also diagnosed with COVID, but per Tim: “Our temperatures are down, our blood oxygen levels normalizing and our energy slowly returning.” Phew and good!

The (International) Critics Too – From Melbourne, former LA Weekly critic Besha Rodell writes: “Super excited to announce that I’ll be taking on the role of restaurant critic for the brand new T Magazine Australia! (As well as continuing my work for the NYT Aus bureau.)” Maybe she’ll be regional?

The Step Aways – Food52 co-founder Merrill Stubbs announced last week that she’s “made the decision to step away from my day-to-day operational responsibilities as President of Food52.” And co-founder of both Eater and Resy, Ben Leventhal, has announced he is stepping down from his main role at Resy. Are Stubbs and Leventhal looking to team up on a next level investment in a pioneering restaurant industry newsletter? We shall see.

The Game – “On Sunday night… David Chang brought home $1 million on ABC game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and it’s all headed to Houston’s own Southern Smoke Foundation.” Details and video of the win via Amy McCarthy at Eater Houston.

Michelin Season – Per Florence Fabricant in the NYT: “Restaurant ratings traditionally land in November, with the annual release of the latest guides from Michelin and Zagat. Not this year. Both companies have put their 2021 New York guides on hold, and both are pivoting in other directions.” (Those directions basically head toward unranked lists and more longform content.)

And Last but not Least – Everything is awful, but I am still endlessly charmed by SF’s Wrecking Ball Coffee founder Nick Cho’s Your Korean Dad TikTok fame. If you, like me, don’t have TikTok, you can read a bit about his bit in this KCBS piece from Kathy Novak, or skip to some of his re-posts on Twitter. Dribble wave. Finger-Thumb-Heart. Falsetto byeeee.

And that’s it for today. Oof. Honestly surprised I even got this one out the door. Schools are closed once again here in Hong Kong — a big COVID cluster at a socialite ballroom dancing school ruined the city’s low infection rate— so I’m back to pretending to be excited about phonics Zooms several times a day. W-o-o-h-o-o.

I’ll see you here Friday for next Family Meal.

And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and Instagram, and send tips and/or mocking Gov. Gavin Newsom for his recent attendance at a birthday party to andrew@thisfamilymeal.com. If you like Family Meal and want to keep it going, please chip in here. If you got this as a forward, sign up for yourself!