Hello Friday,

And hello, December!

Welp. I hemmed and hawed over whether or not to apply for a Beard Award till the last minute, and then... It really was the last minute and my application was blocked.

So I’m not going to waste another minute on this intro. Life is short!

Let’s get to it…

The Fallout – “After numerous allegations of sexual harassment and lawsuits claiming wage theft, the Willows Inn, a world-renowned restaurant and inn on a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest, has closed.” Julia Moskin, who published that first big exposé on Blaine Wetzel’s staff “culture” (and Costco chickens), reports, “Mr. Wetzel’s wife, the chef Daniela Soto-Innes, brought on a new kitchen team for the 2022 season that began in March, but reservations dropped and the inn closed early, serving its final dinner the week before Thanksgiving.”

Next up for Wetzel and Soto-Innes: “At a recent gastronomic conference in Mexico, Ms. Soto-Innes announced that she and Mr. Wetzel were opening a restaurant and farm in Nayarit, north of Puerto Vallarta.”

Next up for the Willows Inn: Seattle Times reporters Jackie Varriano and Tan Vinh say that local, homelessness-focused “nonprofit Lighthouse Mission Ministries is taking over the property... The Christian social service agency confirmed Willows Inn owners Tim and Marcia McEvoy have donated the restaurant space and the adjoining eight-room inn to the organization.” The gift was valued at $2M.

P.S. - If you read Moskin’s story, please make it all the way to the last two paragraphs. Brutal.

The Fall Back – Bit of a corporate retreat at DoorDash this week, as TechCrunch’s Aisha Malik reports, the delivery company “is laying off 1,250 people in an effort to rein in costs, the company’s CEO Tony Xu said in a message to employees on Wednesday. Xu’s message notes that the pandemic presented unprecedented opportunities to serve merchants and consumers, and as a result, DoorDash sped up hiring to catch up with growth. Xu says although most of the company’s investments are paying off, it did not properly manage team growth.”

Meanwhile, per The Information’s Theo Wayt and Erin Woo, “Wonder, [that van-kitchens-in-your-driveway] startup led by Jet.com founder Marc Lore, has laid off 7% of its workforce… as it attempts to overhaul its business. The startup landed a $3.5 billion valuation when it raised $350 million this summer and planned to add more than a thousand kitchens around the tri-state area this year. But now it’s changing up how it’s selling food and trying to find other companies to buy the custom vans it’s been building.”

Italics mine, because in this funny world we live in: Laying off corporate staff is one thing. Selling off key equipment is another…

The Podcast – By the way! Expedite’s Kristen Hawley and I discuss as much of the week’s news (including Willows Inn, DoorDash, Wonder, and more) in our Restaurant Week podcast this week. It’s like a rough cut of sitting down with us and shooting the shit about whatever we’re thinking about. I cuss too much. You can listen to it in this email, or over on Expedite, where Kristen has handy time stamps to let you skip my stuff.

Michelin Season – CA Press Release: After a bunch of teasers, Michelin is slowly rolling out actual rankings in its 2022 guide. They put out a list of “the” 15 new Bib Gourmands this week, and announced, “The entire Michelin Guide California 2022 selection will be available on December 5th at 11:30pm PST.”

Really leaning into their new diversity angle, the press release celebrates its deep breadth of entries “from an LA kitchen run by refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants to a Malaysian cafe in Alhambra.”

Ah, California. So vast and varied, it has excellent restaurants all the way from LA to Alhambra.

Awards Season – After what feels like zero teasing (and weird rollout in which at time of writing there is nothing on the national site?), Eater has begun releasing its city by city 2022 Eater Awards. All sorts of “Bests” are out in Atlanta, Austin, the Carolinas, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Vegas, London, LA, Miami, NOLA, NYC, Philly, PDX, San Diego, SF, Seattle, Twin Cities, and DC.

Congrats, all!

And last but not least: The Code – I guess this has been public knowledge for a while, but on the Dave Chang show this week, René Redzepi announced something I hadn’t heard yet. In his new noma 2.0 cookbook, there are no actual printed recipes. Per the official description, “The book includes 200 dishes catalogued with detailed photography and comprehensive descriptions. This book is a cookbook, but it is not necessarily meant to be cooked from… If you do wish to recreate any of the dishes, there is a QR code in the book which will bring you to every detailed recipe exactly as they are used in the kitchen at noma.”

Just call it a zine, René. Be cool already.

And that’s it for today! Except of course for Tuesday’s paid Family Meal which is copy / pasted below as usual. If you’d like to get Tuesdays’ on Tuesdays too…

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I’m off to Bali (for work) on Monday, so give me a shout if you’re in the area. Otherwise, I’ll see paying subscribers back 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 air protein 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 Family Meal that went out to paying subscribers on Tuesday, November 29th, 2022:

Beard Deadlines, Relief endtimes, Duckhorn gone, Onwuachi home, and more...

Hello Tuesday,

And hello champagne season!

We had an epic Thanksgiving weekend here in Hong Kong. Three mostly traditional Thanksgiving dinners in a row on three different nights with three different groups. I am only now recovering from both the largesse and the massive workload I left untouched during the largesse.

Thus, this late, quite possibly shortest-ever Family Meal. Which I hope finds you well. It’s thin, but I didn’t want to skip today.

I’ve missed you.

Let’s get to it…

The Deadline – First, a reminder: The Beard Awards entry deadline looms imminent. “Submit your entries for the Media Awards or recommendations for the Leadership or Restaurant and Chef Awards by Wednesday, November 30 at 11:59 P.M. ET.” Awards page with details and links here. Whatever you think of awards in general or these awards, you should probably enter and nominate! It is what it is.

I said I wasn’t going to enter Family Meal this year, but… TBD.

The Host ($$$) City – And speaking of awards... In case you missed it (like I did): 50 Best announced earlier this month that their flagship list reveal event is scheduled for June in Valencia next year. ¡Viva Valencia! ¡Viva Tourism Department Budgets!

The Relief – “Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the U.S. Small Business Administration announced that the government agency would be distributing $83 million in unobligated Restaurant Revitalization Fund money to 169 restaurant operators with pending RRF applications.” Restaurant Hospitality’s Joanna Fantozzi reports, “Grants will be distributed in the order in which applications for the original RRF grants were received last year, starting this week. Operators will have until March 2023 to spend the money.”

Everyone else… that’s probably it. Ugh.

For the Somm: Some Sad News – “Margaret Duckhorn, who co-founded one of California’s best-known wineries, Duckhorn Vineyards, died on Saturday, Nov. 26, at age 83. The Duckhorn Portfolio, as the company she started is now known, did not disclose a cause of death.” Esther Mobley has an obituary for “the Napa vintner who helped America fall in love with Merlot,” in the SF Chronicle.

And last but not least: The Profile Treatment – Despite my having self-published the definitive “I walked around town with Kwame Onwuachi” profile a few years ago, Tim Cartman gave it his own shot in the Washington Post this week. The focus is on Onwuachi’s return to his roots in NYC (with his new restaurant Tatiana there) and some stuff reminiscent of his memoir, Notes From A Young Black Chef, but I was most surprised to learn about a few new business ventures Onwuachi has going. For example: “his product lines (like his upcoming sparkling waters, Miri, named for the Igbo word for “water”), [and] his consulting business (like his work with an air protein company, part of Onwuachi’s efforts to reduce our carbon footprint).”

So, uh, can I ask... What exactly are you doing to reduce our carbon footprint?

Oh, you know, just launching a little bottled water line and helping out with air protein.

Ah. Say no more!

Onwuachi in Hong Kong, circa February, 2018.

And… that’s it for today!

I will see you all back here Friday for next Family Meal.

And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and Instagram, and send tips and/or air protein 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!

Family Meal

Willows out, DoorDash down, Wonder used, CA…