RRF priorities, Craft beer fallout, Critical wagging, Moon Dust, and more...
Family Meal - Friday, May 21st, 2021
Hello Friday,
Quick reminder that non-paying subscribers will see Tuesday’s paid edition copy / pasted at bottom, and if you’d like to get Tuesdays’ on Tuesdays…
Let’s get to it…
The Relief – Press release from the Small Business Administration on Wednesday: “Last Call: Administrator Guzman Announces Final Push for Restaurant Revitalization Fund Applications…. eligible eating establishments have until Monday, May 24, 8 p.m. ET, to submit.” Though the fund is already beyond 2x oversubscribed, IRC and others are encouraging everyone to apply to demonstrate demand for a possible round two.
Updates on the numbers in this latest release: “The RRF program has received more than 303,000 applications representing over $69 billion in requested funds, and nearly 38,000 applicants have been approved for more than $6 billion. Of the overall submitted applications, 57 percent came from [the officially prioritized groups of] women, veterans, and socially and economically disadvantaged business owners.”
NB: Outside those priority groups, there is still $220M left in a specially earmarked account for businesses bringing in less than $50k / year.
The Priority – But about those first-dibs… Last week, I linked to this AP story about a Tennessee lawsuit asking the SBA to stop prioritizing women, vets, and socioeconomically disadvantaged owners because “White men are being ‘pushed to the back of the line’ for aid.” This week, a similar lawsuit was launched in Texas, and per John Kruzel in The Hill, “A federal judge there issued a preliminary ruling Tuesday which found that the Biden administration’s… restaurant relief fund discriminated against a white male restaurateur. In an 18-page ruling, the judge ordered [the program] to temporarily stop prioritizing funding applications from businesses owned by women and racial minorities, over that of the plaintiff.”
Not yet clear how that will affect the program, but here’s a fun(?) fact: The Texas lawsuit “was backed by the America First Legal Foundation, a conservative litigation firm led by former Trump aide Stephen Miller. ‘This ruling is the first, but crucial, step towards ending government-sponsored racial discrimination,’ Miller said in a statement.”
So... Stephen Miller is ending government-sponsored racial discrimination via restaurant relief litigation? Your move, Colicchio.
An Update: For The Bar – The accusations on Brienne Allan’s RatMagnet Instagram account (VinePair story linked in Tuesday’s edition below) have begun to have real consequences in the craft beer world. The SF Chronicle’s Janelle Bitker and Esther Mobley report that a number of brewers around the country have been fired, while Jacob McKean, founder and CEO of California’s Modern Times has resigned, as has Copenhagen’s Dry & Bitter founder Søren Wagner.
The Critics… do not agree. Honestly, I initially skipped Pete Wells’s latest NYT column because the headline — What Americans Missed Most About Going to Restaurants. (It Wasn’t the Food.) — reminded me of a million pieces written since March 2020 (“We go out to eat, yes. But also to connect. Please send my JBF Media award to…”). But, don’t skip it! Or, if you must, skip down to the part about the “finger-waggers,” where Wells goes in a bit on those who pushed their safety views on others “up until vaccines came out,” comparing them to AIDS-crisis-era abstinence types who never quite understood what it is to be human: “Both groups saw the behavior they disapproved of as a failure of moral fiber rather than as a predictable expression of an urge so deep that you could say, without much exaggeration, that cities are built on it.” (He then compares staff tasting orange wine pre-shift to (poetic license here) being there for Howl at Six Gallery.)
That feels like a big rebuttal of a ton of 2020 food media, not least that of fellow NYC critic Ryan Sutton, who was still holding strong to his dining-indoors-is-not-safe line this week in Eater: “Cuomo Is Wrong to Rush Toward Mask-Free, Before-Times Dining.” Sutton’s main argument is that because vaccine distribution has been biased against some groups who “make up a significant portion of the hospitality industry… including 58 percent of the adult Latinx population,” ditching mask mandates and going full-capacity is dangerous. He doesn’t say “don’t go out to eat,” but it’s not hard to hear that as the theme.
Meanwhile on the other coast, the SF Chronicle’s Soleil Ho says “After 15 months, I'm finally eating indoors at restaurants again,” and gives a list of reasons she feels OK dining indoors again, including: “From my vantage point, the people who wanted vaccines got them.”
The Media – Headline: “Eater NY Is Looking for a [part-time] Reporter — Is it You?” Me? No. You?
For Design Fans – “Take A Peek Inside Cafe Leonelli and Le Jardinier, [Museum of Fine Arts Houston’s] Duo of Stunning New Restaurants,” with photos by Caroline Fontenot. If you, like me, assumed the lighting in the café was the result of someone being really, really into atomic pendant configurations…. We’re wrong? It’s actually, “The intricacies of Moon Dust, a visually arresting 2009 sculpture from American artist Spencer Finch that involves 417 incandescent light bulbs and 150 fixtures that hang from the ceiling.” So… Never mind. We’re right. But I like that they went with the exact opposite in Le Jardinier: One big fixture (“an installation of Isamu Noguchi lanterns”), broken only by an inexplicable row of mini track lighting down its middle, and the (fantastic) mirror behind the bar. I’d tread that carpet (oh yeah: carpet!).
And last but not least – Already put this on Twitter, but I love this story: The Atlanta Constitution-Journal’s Leon Stafford reports a Stockbridge, GA city councilman allegedly asked Arick Whitson, owner of Georgia Championship Barbeque Company, if he “wanted to do business with the city” before ordering $60 worth of food. After Whitson wouldn’t comp the meal, the councilman got angry, and, “days later, code enforcement officials showed up at the eatery and began harassing Whitson until the following spring.” But Whitson stayed strong and sued, and the city’s insurer eventually settled with him for $1M. Big win for the little guy! But actually a really big win for the little guy because the insurance company accidentally paid him twice and now can’t figure out how to get its money back.
Don’t milkshake duck on me Arick Whitson. You’re my $2M hero.
And that’s it for today. Except of course for Tuesday’s paid Family Meal, which is copy / pasted below as usual. If you want to get Tuesdays’ on Tuesdays…
I’ll see paying subscribers here Tuesday and everyone else on Friday for next Family Meal.
And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and Instagram, and send tips and/or the veracity of any account referenced in this story to andrew@thisfamilymeal.com. If you like Family Meal and want to keep it going, become a paying subscriber! If you got this as a forward, sign up for yourself!
Here begins Family Meal from Tuesday, May 18th, 2021:
Rents up, Critics in, Clendenen gone, Hog high, Goldbelly funded, and more...
Hello Tuesday,
And hello to paying subscribers only! If you’re getting this as a forward and wish you got Tuesday editions on Tuesdays too…
Welp. My brief dreams of travel have been dashed. The Hong Kong – Singapore travel bubble is delayed again. Thanks much to everyone who sent tips for the trip. Someday (in the Creedence sense).
Let’s get to it…
The Rent – Seems like only weeks ago we were talking about all the up-and-comers who might finally be able to take their brick-and-mortar shot in newly wide-open markets, but…. Headline in the SF Chronicle: “Despite pandemic closures, it's nearly impossible to get a restaurant space in the Bay Area.” Per Janelle Bitker, “Local real estate agents and brokers confirmed that they’re seeing multiple offers on restaurant spaces. Interest has picked up dramatically in just the past two weeks, said Tasha Delancey, a San Francisco Realtor with Vanguard Properties. She recently squeezed in 16 showings for Royal Oak Bar — a building for sale at $8.5 million in Russian Hill — after nearly two months of inactivity.”
And on top of that, landlords “are prioritizing renting to more experienced restaurateurs, meaning the… next wave of new restaurants may be mostly from people with established businesses or more financial backing.”
BUT if you do manage to get a space, NB: “New leases tend to include language such as reducing rent if the city enters another lockdown.”
The Critics – “The Chicago Tribune is naming Louisa Chu and Nick Kindelsperger as its food critics, following the departure of Phil Vettel in January after 31 years as the city’s definitive authority on dining.” They are not anonymous — bios and photos are included, and the press release notes they “have been food and dining reporters at the Tribune for five years each” — but there is no clear indication of how they’ll split the work or even how they’ll operate on reviews (stars? three visits minimum?). If they want to avoid an LAT Food style breakup, I hope they figure it all out soon…
But, as Chicago’s Michael Gebert put it this week: “At least we know this much: they'll do a better job than no reviewers at all at any of the city's daily papers or major magazines, which is where we've been until now.”
Key zeitgeist quote from Kindelsperger: “I believe there has been an absence of discussion in race and class in regard to food, especially in Chicago. You can’t ignore these things and shy away from discussion about what it means in America to deal with these issues.”
For the Bar – Headline in VinePair: “Sweeping Accusations of Sexism, Assault Rock The Craft Beer Industry.” Beth Demmon has the story of brewer Brienne Allan’s RatMagnet instagram account, which is relaying “Thousands of messages — and counting… [including] accusations against some of the beer world’s most lauded brewers and breweries.” Demmon names names of people repeatedly accused, but there are so many hedges in this story (not least the italics at the very end: “Ed. note: VinePair does not confirm the veracity of any account referenced in this story.”) and on Allan’s Instgram page (“THESE STORIES ARE NOT MINE AND I DO NOT VOUCH FOR THEIR ACCURACY.”), that I think I’d better let you read them there. (I know, I know.)
But I don’t think the news here will end anytime soon. Demmon says that “as of Sunday, May 16, [RatMagnet’s] original 2,200 Instagram followers have multiplied to upwards of 19,000.” By the time I hit send on this two days later, that number was 25.5k…
For TV Fans – Was going to wait to include this till I’d had a chance to see it, but the press tour waits for no premier, so here are back to back NYT pieces about “High On The Hog,” a new Netflix docu-series based on the book of the same title by Dr. Jessica B. Harris that explores (per the subtitle), “How African American Cuisine Transformed America.” First, there’s the production backstory from Kim Severson, which is a key read for anyone wondering how a Netflix show like this comes to be (and is best read with the context that host Stephen Satterfield has been bashing his head against a wall trying to get funding for his other food media projects for years). Then, there’s what I read as basically an essential preface to the show, Osayi Endolyn’s “The Profound Significance of ‘High on the Hog.’” Endolyn makes the case for the series being fundamentally an exploration and expression of “Black joy,” and is backed up by two big kicker quotes from Satterfield and Harris themselves.
So that’s the pre-release chatter (oh, and Helen Rosner went to dinner with Harris for the New Yorker too!). Here’s the trailer. Debut: May 26. We shall see (it)!
Some Sad News – “There is news that will send shockwaves throughout the wine world. Jim Clendenen, ‘the mind behind’ Au Bon Climat in Santa Barbara County… died in his sleep on Saturday night. He was only 68.” Jancis Robinson had that first obituary on her site (she calls Clendenen “Wild Boy”), followed quickly by Esther Mobley’s in the SF Chronicle, and many, many other tributes around social media.
And last but not least: The Platinum Tummy – “Goldbelly plans to announce this week that it has raised $100 million in new funding.” NYT’s Michael J. de la Merced reports that the company, which does long-distance delivery for restaurant food, is eight years old, but, “More than 400 of the 850 restaurants that sell food on Goldbelly’s platform have joined since the start of the pandemic, an influx that the company says has more than quadrupled sales over the past 12 months.” That is either some seriously unsustainable COVID-era growth, or just the bump in onboarding Goldbelly needed to really get going (read: snag $100M). I think with all the ghost kitchen opportunities happening at the same time, I’m probably short this one. But only in the sense of making a profit, and the VC money makes “profit” seem about as quaint as Goldbelly does, “Eat Local.”
And that’s it for today.
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 the veracity of any account referenced in this story to andrew@thisfamilymeal.com. If you like Family Meal and want to keep it going, become a paying subscriber! If you got this as a forward, sign up for yourself!