The show, which will stream on Disney Plus, is hosted by The Office’s Angela Kinsey
A new trailer has dropped for Be Our Chef, the upcoming cooking competition series that will stream exclusively on Disney Plus. The series, which was first announced in April, will feature five families cooking themed dishes inspired by Disney characters (some familiar faces in the trailer include Cinderella, Frozen’s Olaf, and Big Hero 6’s Baymax). In each episode, two families go head to head to compete for the grand prize of creating a signature dish or treat that will be served at Walt Disney World. Hosting the show is Angela Kinsey of The Office fame, while Disney chefs will serve as judges.
It’s a premise not dissimilar to the U.K.’s Big Family Cooking Showdown — a delightful companion show to The Great British Bake Off — all wrapped up in one family-friendly, Disney-fied package. Judging from the trailer, there will be plenty of cute, matching family outfits, kitchen mishaps, and small children uttering dramatic lines like, “It’s all fun and games — until we lose. Then it’s on.”
Be Our Chef will debut on Disney Plus on March 27, joining a slate of other programming exclusive to the streaming platform.
From a Michelin-starred vegetarian tasting menu to an offal feast in Les Halles, here’s where to eat in the French capital
Over the last 10 years, Paris has boldly reclaimed its title as the best food city in Europe. The French capital is bustling with a brilliant constellation of new restaurants by talented young chefs from all over the world, plus an inventive and diverse array of casual dining options. There’s also been a renaissance of its long-established gastronomic landscape, including traditional bistros, brasseries, and stylish restaurants serving classic French cooking made famous by Escoffier, including dishes like blanquette de veau (veal in cream sauce) and pistachio soufflés.
February 2020 Update:
As usual, some restaurants must leave the list to make way for new ones.
Many Paris chefs are looking for ways to reintroduce fun to expensive, haute cuisine. Excellent bistros Au Petit Tonneau and Chez la Vieille make way for La Scene and L’Epicure, two restaurants where high prices are guaranteed to buy you an amazing experience along with refined dishes.
The Paris dining scene has never been more cosmopolitan, so Pianovins and Hugo & Co. leave to make room for the wild Israeli party at Shabour and Japanese chef (and Clown Bar alum) Sota Atsumi’s solo project, Maison. Meanwhile, chef favorite Le Tagine replaces Le Mansouria as the capital’s best Moroccan restaurant.
The wave of affordable dining in Paris continues with places like Le Cadoret, which replaces Detour. KGB and Eels also provide great bang for your Euro, seeing off Chez Michel (which changed owners).
As the bistronomy movement grows long in the tooth, traditional French comfort food has become popular again. Baieta makes way for terrines and pates en croute at Restaurant Arnaud Nicolas. Chez l’Ami Jean, Stephane Jego’s homage to southwestern France, edges out Le Severo. Wine bar Juvenile’s solid, lowkey Gallic feed replaces A Noste. And Le Bon Georges gives way to Frenchie, which has become a beloved institution 10 years in, thanks to chef Gregory Marchand’s creative cooking.
Prices per person, excluding alcohol:
$ = Less than 10 euros (less than $11 USD) $$ = 10 — 35 euros ($11 — $40 USD) $$$ = 35 — 75 euros ($40 — $83 USD) $$$$ = More than 75 euros ($83 USD)
Alexander Lobrano is the ultimate Paris restaurant expert and author of Hungry for Paris and Hungry for France. He blogs about restaurants on alexanderlobrano.com and writes often for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Saveur, and other publications.
Billionaire presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg is enticing voters with unprecedented amounts of free food and booze — and not the cheap stuff, either
Last week, on the first day of early voting in North Carolina, over 700 people waited in torrential rain to attend a 7 a.m. event for billionaire Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg. Among the attendees at Footnote Coffee in downtown Winston-Salem was 22-year-old Wake Forest undergrad Meredith Happy, who posted a Snapchat shortly after she walked into the event. The picture wasn’t of any campaign signage, or even the candidate, but of a kingly spread of food that included quiches, smoked salmon with capers and chopped eggs, a fruit platter, cookies, and assorted pastries. She captioned the photo “Daddy Bloomberg.”
“I’ve never seen food at a political event,” Happy said. “And I’ve been to a lot of them.”
Judging by the all-you-can-eat feasts that have become a hallmark of Bloomberg events throughout the country, his unconventional presidential campaign — which has seen him enter the race just days before the deadline to appear on the ballot in many states, skip the first four states of the Democratic primary, and totally eschew outside fundraising — is taking at least one old adage seriously: that the way to a voter’s heart is through their stomach. Pete Buttigieg may hold fundraisers in a wine cave, but Bloomberg brings wine to the voters, serving it alongside Cuban sandwiches and kosher pigs in a blanket at a Miami rally in late January. Two weeks ago, in Philadelphia, more than 1,000 attendees feasted on hoagies, honeyed Brie, and cheesesteaks at Bloomberg’s expense.
Caption this: One young voter went with “Daddy Bloomberg”
“There was a longstanding bribery tradition where candidates would offer whiskey in exchange for the ‘correct’ vote,” says Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Marymount University and an expert on election law. Prior to the standardization of the ballot, Americans voted with colored slips of paper, which could be identified from afar by someone handing out free hooch.
In 1948, Congress passed a law banning the use of expenditures to influence voting, virtually ending the practice of candidates handing out free food and drinks to sway voters. The law applies only to inducements to vote a particular way, however; doling out goods freely, without the promise of a particular vote, is perfectly legal — as made clear by Tom Steyer’s taco truck at an early-voting site in Las Vegas. “If you get the food regardless of whether you take it and walk down the street and vote, it’s not a quid pro quo,” Levitt says. “Shady is in the eye of the beholder.”
Free food is rarely seen at most campaign events, but it’s a fixture at Bloomberg’s rallies.
Last week, Andre Rice from Phoenix was in the middle of his work day at an online education company when he got a message from an unknown number. It was from a member of Team Bloomberg who called himself Jason, inviting Rice to a Latin-themed “¡Ganamos! con Mike” event with the promise of “food and fun.” When Rice asked for additional details about the food, Jason replied, “Not sure. I think it will be possibly South American.”
Community gatherings like the one Rice was invited to are fairly low in the hierarchy of campaign events — the candidate isn’t there, and the turnout is typically limited to a couple dozen locals networking over shared interest in a topic — but even in this kind of setting, the Bloomberg campaign uses food as part of the draw. (It is ultimately a limited one for some voters: Rice declined the invitation.)
At a recent “Brazilians for Bloomberg” event at Beco in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, there were plates of empanadas, steak sandwiches, and pao de queijo (cheesy bread), while pitchers of caipirinhas were continually refreshed, in both passionfruit and regular flavors. Tonight, at a “Vietnamese-American Campaign Allies” event at the hit Lower East Side eatery An Choi, happy-hour specials on Saigon beer, taro fries, spring rolls, and Vietnamese wings will be covered by the campaign. “I’m getting a firsthand experience in how the Bloomberg machine works,” said An Choi owner Tuan Bui, who added, “I’m voting for Bernie Sanders.”
The luxe provisions offered by Bloomberg mark a significant departure from the stale bagels and pizza that are the staples of most campaigns, even for bigger events like office openings. “At most of our organizing events, volunteers actually bring the food, instead of us supplying it. There tends to be a lot of pizza and homemade sweets,” says Olivia Bercow, Nevada press director for Pete Buttigieg’s campaign. “At rallies, we don’t typically have food.”
At a recent office opening in Bayside, Queens, the Bloomberg campaign ordered food from Erawan Thai Cuisine, the French Workshop, Maria’s Mediterranean, Martha’s Country Bakery, Bayside Milk Farm, Mr. Pollo, VIPizza, and Papazzio. “Queens is the most diverse neighborhood in the country,” says Jennifer Blatus, New York communications director for the Bloomberg campaign. “We’re able to cater to each individual group.”
Is the draw Bloomberg, or the food? Difficult to tell!
On the trail, the extravagance of the free food has become a part of Bloomberg campaign lore. Embedded journalists often post pictures of the spreads, and his Philadelphia rally — the one that offered beer, hoagies, cheesesteaks, and honeyed Brie — is referenced in numerous articlesaboutthe campaign’slavish spending.
“People are more likely to engage with the message when they have a full stomach,” says Helen Monroe, a Winston-Salem resident who was at the 7 a.m. early-voting event in North Carolina. Monroe went for seconds from the smoked salmon platter and lingered after the candidate stepped off stage. Later in the day in Raleigh, the campaign rented out the train station and set up a DIY buffet of barbecue sliders, along with platters of pimento cheese, vegetables, and hummus. A crate of bread was tipped over, evoking visions of a cornucopia overflowing with abundance. According to one caterer, there were 120 pounds each of pulled pork and chicken to feed the anticipated lunchtime crowd.
DIY barbecue sliders in Raleigh, North Carolina. One hundred twenty pounds each of pulled pork and chicken were at the ready.
Though the campaign ultimately wouldn’t comment on how it chooses its food vendors, there is a clear pattern — cheesesteaks in Philly, Cuban sandwiches in Miami, barbecue in North Carolina — meant to signal to the voters that Mike Bloomberg is relatable, or at least knows what they eat, in much the same way candidates with lesser budgets appear on camera eating corn dogs in Iowa or stopping into Dunkin Donuts in New Hampshire.
And for some voters, that seems to be enough. “In North Carolina, you have Eastern and Western barbecue sauce, and at this event you have both. He’s a uniter!” said Millie Ravenel, a Raleigh resident who said that she was undecided before the event. She took another bite of her pulled pork sandwich. “I cemented my commitment to him today.”
Gary He is a photojournalist based in New York City.
Alchemist, the Copenhagen restaurant that serves one dish on a realistic model of a human tongue, received two stars
Michelin Guide released its 2020 guide for Nordic countries, which include Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. Last year’s guide featured 64 restaurants across the region, including perpetual favorite Noma, which retained two stars, and Norway’s RE-NAA. This year, there are seven new one-star restaurants and four new two-star restaurants.
Copenhagen’s Alchemist, which recently went viral for a dish served on a realistic human tongue model, was given two stars. Opened last summer, the “holistic dining experience” immediately gained a reputation for its inventive plating and visuals, which delighted some and totally grossed out others. The restaurant serves a meal of “50 impressions” which lasts between three and five hours, and includes dishes like foie gras served in what looks like a severed human head, various edibles made to look like squeezes of paint, and the “Tongue Kiss” dish, from which diners are invited to lick a topping off a realistic tongue. The restaurant specifies it is not “the right choice for an evening of business discussions or that first nervous date” (sorry, Dan).
A 50 course dinner of ground-breakingly creative dishes that stimulate the senses. This is ‘Tongue Kiss’ – where you lick the topping off a disconcertingly realistic tongue #Alchemist#Copenhagen#Denmarkpic.twitter.com/AbMuKvyOmi
Other two-star restaurants are Jordnær, RE-NAA and Aloë, which were all promoted from one star. Gwendal Poullennec, International Director of the Michelin Guides, says, “While they are all very different, what they share is a real passion for sourcing and seasonality.” There is also a new one-star restaurant in Finland, one in Iceland, one in Sweden, and four in Norway.
There are now only two restaurants in the region with three stars. Copenhagen’s Geranium and Stockholm’s Frantzén maintained that distinction. But Oslo’s Maaemo closed in December, and according to Dagbladet, is opening in a new location, thus giving up its stars. However, given that Maaemo is re-opening with largely the same staff, some critics argue that Michelin should allow the restaurant to maintain its three-star ranking. “They should keep the stars, but it’s a bit unclear. But, even though they move, they have pretty much the same team, so I think they keep all three,” said Mikael Svensson, chef at one-starred Kontrast. As of now, Maaemo isn’t listed on Michelin’s site.
The French tire company also announced its awards for the Nordic region, with Tina Kragh Vildgaard of Jordnær receiving the Welcome & Service Award, and Rasmus Kofoed of Geranium, and a mainstay of the Bocuse D’or, winning the Chef Mentor Award. Magnus Ek of Stockholm’s Oaxen Krog and Oaxen Slip received the sustainability award, part of Michelin’s new sustainability designation to highlight restaurants that make great efforts toward being environmentally friendly. You can read the full list of new winners here.
Felipe Reyes, the owner of Las Delicias de Mexico, hands out free tacos on behalf of candidate Tom Steyer at an early voting site in Las Vegas
Does parking food trucks — and picking up the tab — at caucus sites bring in more voters? Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer thinks so
Tom Steyer, the hedge-fund billionaire turned self-funded presidential candidate who’s poured nearly $200 million into campaign advertising, adopted a more hands-on approach for the start of early voting in the Nevada caucus on Saturday. Outside of the Culinary Union headquarters in Las Vegas, an early voting site, mariachis in white and gold costumes played while a food truck called Las Delicias de Mexico handed out tacos and the Cookie Bar, a bright pink truck, served cookies and hot chocolate. All of the food was free, paid for by the Steyer campaign.
Nevada is the third state to vote in the 2020 Democratic primary, the “first in the West” caucus, and in a state with significantly more demographic diversity than Iowa or New Hampshire. As a part of the rule changes mandated by the national Democratic party to increase primary access, for the first time Nevada’s caucus includes early voting. Early voting sites in Las Vegas include not just high schools and libraries but a location of the Latino grocery store Cardenas Market and Lucy Ethiopian Restaurant, as well as union halls, like Culinary Union Local 226’s.
A mariachi band hired by the Steyer campaign performs outside of an early voting site
The 60,000-member strong Culinary Union is one of the most powerful forces in Nevada politics, known to make or break elections in the state. It’s a majority Latino organization but represents immigrant workers from more than 170 countries. Two members, Raul Mora and Daniel Paymo, who had decided to support Steyer just before casting their votes, emerged from the caucus site surprised and delighted to see him. They got tacos and a picture with the candidate. Asked whether free food felt manipulative, Mora shrugged and said, “A taco’s a taco.”
While election-day giveaways have proliferated over the past few years, it’s been illegal since 1948 to give out food in exchange for votes whenever a federal candidate is on the ballot. No signs indicated the trucks were affiliated with the Steyer campaign or that they were giving away free food, but soon after the trucks opened, the billionaire arrived and greeted voters, snapping photos with supporters and ordering a few tacos. Steyer, who is running on a platform that emphasizes fighting climate change and calling for structural political reforms, said he brought in the food trucks to make early voting “more fun,” and praised food’s ability to bring people together. “There’s a big question here about how are we going to return a sense of compassion and civility to America, and food’s definitely going to part of it,” he said.
Felipe Reyes, the owner of Las Delicias de Mexico, isn’t sure how the campaign found his truck. He says he serves tacos in the style of his home town, Mexico City, and that his specialty is a shrimp taco. He declined to share how much the campaign had paid for him to give out food, but he noted that he wasn’t required to say the food came from Steyer.
Billionaire Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer talks to the owner of the taco truck he hired to serve people outside of an early voting site
Caleb Marks, one of the Cookie Bar truck owners, said the Steyer campaign had hired several of their trucks to park at multiple early voting sites that day, including at Cheyenne High School and the East Vegas Library. He said they were hired to give out free cookies and water to “whoever wanted it” for two hours; he also declined to say how much the campaign paid. The trucks had also served food at Obama events, which Marks speculated was maybe how Steyer campaign found them.
Asked about compliance with federal guidelines on free food for voters, the Steyer campaign supplied a statement: “Providing refreshments at caucus locations is a data-driven method that increases turnout across the board and adds enjoyment to all Nevadans who decide to participate. The Nevada Democratic Party issued detailed guidance to all presidential campaigns on early voting locations and we are in compliance with their guidance. The food provided by our campaign was free to all, regardless of political affiliation or intention to caucus.”
Some kitchen “hacks” may work, but a lot of the ones promoted in viral clickbait do not. | Photo: VanoVasaio/Shutterstock
Plus, Kit Kat unveils a new birthday cake flavor, and more news to start your day
BBC debunks “the fake news of the baking world”
You’ve seen them populating your Facebook feed or popping up on YouTube: those viral videos of “food hacks” and “kitchen tricks” that seem to promise transformative results from suspiciously easy steps. Unsurprisingly, those tricks — flan from a milk carton! jelly from gummy bears! popcorn from an ear of corn! — do not actually work, technology reporter Chris Fox reveals in a video for BBC in which he debunks several viral food hacks.
Fox also cites the work of food scientist Ann Reardon, who exposes food hoaxes on her own YouTube channel. “It’s the fake news of the baking world,” says Reardon. The reason it works, according to the food scientist, is that clickbait still has a huge advantage in the algorithm-ruled worlds of YouTube and Facebook.
But the viral hacks aren’t just harmless wastes of time — as both Fox and Reardon warn, some of the suggestions offered in videos from the likes of 5-Minute Crafts and So Yummy are actually dangerous, and could result in real harm if someone attempted to, say, consume bleached strawberries (yes, really) or pour molten caramel on a spinning whisk. In 2019, a woman was sent to the hospital after she allegedly tried a recipe that instructed her to microwave eggs, which exploded in her face. As Greg Morabito wrote for Eater: “Recipe testing is […] a process that requires extra time and resources, and many viral food hacks and ‘how to’ tutorials don’t need to actually be cookable to become wildly popular on the internet, anyway.” It’s always better to view videos telling you to make an egg bigger than before with a healthy sense of skepticism!
And in other news…
Kit Kat’s newest limited-edition flavor is birthday cake. [The Takeout]
Chicago-based grocery delivery pioneer Peapod is shutting down operations in the Midwest. [Chicago Tribune]
Researchers at Ghent University in Belgium are experimenting with baking desserts made with larvae fat as a butter substitute. [Vice]
A new bill introduced by Senators Cory Booker and John Cornyn would fund nutrition education in unhealthier school districts. [Modern Farmer]
The Dairy Farmers of America, a farmer-owned cooperative, have put in a bid to buy a substantial part of Dean Foods, the country’s largest (and now bankrupt) milk processor. [CNN]
Many of the oldest companies in countries around the world — particularly in Europe — are bars, restaurants, and other food and drink companies. [Fast Company]
From acai bowls to salt cod and fishing boats to a churrascaria, the chef takes in Lusophonic food culture in the greater Boston area
On the last episode of No Passport Required Season 2, host Marcus Samuelsson goes to the greater Boston area to learn more about Portuguese, Brazilian, and Cape Verdean food traditions. These three countries in the Portuguese-speaking — aka Lusophone — world have many cultural similarities, and in this episode, Marcus dives into the Lusophonic communities in the Massachusetts cities of Boston, New Bedford, and Fall River. He eats Portuguese chowder with halibut on a fishing boat and visits a Portuguese marketplace where he tries plenty of bacalhau, the popular dried salt cod that is one of the defining foods of the cuisine. Later, in a home kitchen, he makes a bacalhau gratin with cheese and potatoes. He also learns the history of Afro-Brazilian martial art capoeira over açaí bowls and Brazilian baked goods, listens to a Cape Verdean singer and tries Cape Verdean specialties like cachupa and jagacida, and, of course, heads to a churrascaria for lots and lots of meat.
Additional episodes: Each hour-long episode focuses on a different immigrant community in a new city: In addition to Boston, the series travels to Seattle, where Marcus cooks with a Filipino community eager to preserve its food traditions while using key ingredients like ube and vinegar to create new ones; Los Angeles, home to the largest Armenian community outside of Armenia; and Houston, home to one of the highest numbers of West African expatriates of any U.S. city. Other episodes focus on the Italian-American community in Philadelphia, which has thrived for generations, and Las Vegas, where the Chinese-American community has grown tremendously over the last 20 years. The episodes air weekly on PBS, and all are now available for streaming.
Missed Season 1? Stream full episodes from the entire first season now, or check out recaps and more intel on No Passport Requiredhere.
Online and on social: Tag @eater, @pbs, and #NoPassRequiredPBS if you share clips, pictures, or quotes from the show. Check back on Eater Boston tomorrow to see a map of the restaurants featured in the episode, and head to PBS to learn more about the show, find character bios, and get recipes to cook at home.
No Passport Required is produced for PBS by Eater and Vox Media Studios, part of Vox Media. Stream full episodes on Eater and PBS, or check local listings. Get more information on the show at pbs.org/nopassrequired.
From acai bowls to salt cod and fishing boats to a churrascaria, the chef takes in Lusophonic food culture in the greater Boston area
On the last episode of No Passport Required Season 2, host Marcus Samuelsson goes to the greater Boston area to learn more about Portuguese, Brazilian, and Cape Verdean food traditions. These three countries in the Portuguese-speaking — aka Lusophone — world have many cultural similarities, and in this episode, Marcus dives into the Lusophonic communities in the Massachusetts cities of Boston, New Bedford, and Fall River. He eats Portuguese chowder with halibut on a fishing boat and visits a Portuguese marketplace where he tries plenty of bacalhau, the popular dried salt cod that is one of the defining foods of the cuisine. Later, in a home kitchen, he makes a bacalhau gratin with cheese and potatoes. He also learns the history of Afro-Brazilian martial art capoeira over açaí bowls and Brazilian baked goods, listens to a Cape Verdean singer and tries Cape Verdean specialties like cachupa and jagacida, and, of course, heads to a churrascaria for lots and lots of meat.
Additional episodes: Each hour-long episode focuses on a different immigrant community in a new city: In addition to Boston, the series travels to Seattle, where Marcus cooks with a Filipino community eager to preserve its food traditions while using key ingredients like ube and vinegar to create new ones; Los Angeles, home to the largest Armenian community outside of Armenia; and Houston, home to one of the highest numbers of West African expatriates of any U.S. city. Other episodes focus on the Italian-American community in Philadelphia, which has thrived for generations, and Las Vegas, where the Chinese-American community has grown tremendously over the last 20 years. The episodes air weekly on PBS, and all are now available for streaming.
Missed Season 1? Stream full episodes from the entire first season now, or check out recaps and more intel on No Passport Requiredhere.
Online and on social: Tag @eater, @pbs, and #NoPassRequiredPBS if you share clips, pictures, or quotes from the show. Check back on Eater Boston tomorrow to see a map of the restaurants featured in the episode, and head to PBS to learn more about the show, find character bios, and get recipes to cook at home.
No Passport Required is produced for PBS by Eater and Vox Media Studios, part of Vox Media. Stream full episodes on Eater and PBS, or check local listings. Get more information on the show at pbs.org/nopassrequired.
It’s the latest in the review site’s attempt to be “consumer advocates”
There’s a new warning splashed across the Yelp pages for all 200-plus locations of embattled burger franchise Burgerim: “Consumer Alert,” it reads. “We caught someone offering up cash, discounts, gift certificates, or other incentives in exchange for reviews about this business.” And they’ve got the receipts: Yelp even links to the proof against Burgerim, as is their delightfully shady policy. In this case, it’s a form letter from the chain’s corporate office to would-be influencers that offers one complimentary combo meal in exchange for Instagram posts and five-star Yelp reviews.
A suspicious review alert on Burgerim’s Yelp page
Yelp has been cracking down on paid reviews with particular emphasis since 2012, publicizing those crackdowns under a “Consumer Alert” push. (A visit to any Burgerim page now comes with a pop-up explanation from Yelp reading: “We wanted you to know because buying reviews not only hurts consumers, but also honest businesses who play by the rules.”) Recently, the company rolled out similar warnings of “Suspicious Review Activity” for businesses with many reviews made via the same IP address — i.e. possibly by the same person or group of people — or generated through a “review ring,” a group of people or fake accounts that post positive reviews for money. Yelp says it recently closed more than 400 accounts associated with one such review ring, caught by a third-party agency it hired to solicit paid reviews across the web.
More Yelp alerts, which include highlighting restaurants with poor health scores, don’t typically endear the tech company to businesses on its platform — which, to be real, have never much cared for Yelp. Still, Yelp is increasingly making its case to customers, framing itself as a sort of online consumer watchdog, the Elizabeth Warren of review sites. And its platform, though problematic, is still a powerful one: 100 million users look at Yelp every month on desktop, and 36 million monthly users scroll its mobile app.
But among bigger global competitors like TripAdvisor (490 million monthly users) — on which a third of reviews were fake according to a 2018 Times of London investigation — Yelp, a company with $1 billion in revenue last year, sees itself as a trustworthy underdog. Vis-a-vis Google, with which Yelp has been locked in a bitter feud for more than a decade, Yelp casts itself as David taking on Goliath. Since Google can bury Yelp in its search results and prioritize its own ratings and reviews, Yelp says it must work harder to establish trust, developing features like consumer alerts.
“[Yelp] needs to find ways to get consumer traffic,” Yelp’s VP of communications Vince Sollitto tells Eater. “To earn it, we do everything we can, because we’ve always prioritized trust.”
Yes, everything it can, including “review ring” sting operations. But in the case of Burgerim, it’s not necessarily customers, but would-be franchise operators, that could use a warning. This month, Senator Dianne Feinstein encouraged the FTC to investigate Burgerim for its allegedly “false or misleading sales tactics” to seduce franchisees, and now both Maryland and Washington have revoked the chain’s right to sell franchises. Now that’s a serious consumer alert that has nothing to do with David M. in Chicago taking a free burger in exchange for a five-star rave.
It’s the latest in the review site’s attempt to be “consumer advocates”
There’s a new warning splashed across the Yelp pages for all 200-plus locations of embattled burger franchise Burgerim: “Consumer Alert,” it reads. “We caught someone offering up cash, discounts, gift certificates, or other incentives in exchange for reviews about this business.” And they’ve got the receipts: Yelp even links to the proof against Burgerim, as is their delightfully shady policy. In this case, it’s a form letter from the chain’s corporate office to would-be influencers that offers one complimentary combo meal in exchange for Instagram posts and five-star Yelp reviews.
A suspicious review alert on Burgerim’s Yelp page
Yelp has been cracking down on paid reviews with particular emphasis since 2016, publicizing those crackdowns under a “Consumer Alert” push. (A visit to any Burgerim page now comes with a pop-up explanation from Yelp reading: “We wanted you to know because buying reviews not only hurts consumers, but also honest businesses who play by the rules.”) Recently, the company rolled out similar warnings of “Suspicious Review Activity” for businesses with many reviews made via the same IP address — i.e. possibly by the same person or group of people — or generated through a “review ring,” a group of people or fake accounts that post positive reviews for money. Yelp says it recently closed more than 400 accounts associated with one such review ring, caught by a third-party agency it hired to solicit paid reviews across the web.
More Yelp alerts, which include highlighting restaurants with poor health scores, don’t typically endear the tech company to businesses on its platform — which, to be real, have never much cared for Yelp. Still, Yelp is increasingly making its case to customers, framing itself as a sort of online consumer watchdog, the Elizabeth Warren of review sites. And its platform, though problematic, is still a powerful one: 100 million users look at Yelp every month on desktop, and 73 million on mobile.
But among bigger global competitors like TripAdvisor (490 million monthly users) — on which a third of reviews were fake according to a 2018 Times of London investigation — Yelp, a company with $942 million in revenue last year, sees itself as a trustworthy underdog. Vis-a-vis Google, with which Yelp has been locked in a bitter feud for more than a decade, Yelp casts itself as David taking on Goliath. Since Google can bury Yelp in its search results and prioritize its own ratings and reviews, Yelp says it must work harder to establish trust, developing features like consumer alerts.
“[Yelp] needs to find ways to get consumer traffic,” Yelp’s VP of communications Vince Sollitto tells Eater. “To earn it, we do everything we can, because we’ve always prioritized trust.”
Yes, everything it can, including “review ring” sting operations. But in the case of Burgerim, it’s not necessarily customers, but would-be franchise operators, that could use a warning. This month, Senator Dianne Feinstein encouraged the FTC to investigate Burgerim for its allegedly “false or misleading sales tactics” to seduce franchisees, and now both Maryland and Washington have revoked the chain’s right to sell franchises. Now that’s a serious consumer alert that has nothing to do with David M. in Chicago taking a free burger in exchange for a five-star rave.
On Eater’s Digest, we talk dating strategies with our team and a bartender
A frequent request we get at Eater from both readers and colleagues is first date venue suggestions. People want something casual but not dumpy, busy but not too packed, a place that’s convenient but not boring. So this week on the Eater Digest podcast, we spoke with Julia Rubin and Rebecca Jennings from The Goods, a string of Eater editors and writers, and bartender Jack Schramm to discuss, assess, and analyze first date spots and strategies.
Is a tasting menu completely out of the question? What about a trap to weed out picky eaters? Do you have the date pick so you can judge them, or focus on maximizing your enjoyment of the bar? And, of course, we hear about what not to do and first dates gone awry.
It’s the latest in the review site’s attempt to be “consumer advocates”
There’s a new warning splashed across the Yelp pages for all 200-plus locations of embattled burger franchise Burgerim: “Consumer Alert,” it reads. “We caught someone offering up cash, discounts, gift certificates, or other incentives in exchange for reviews about this business.” And they’ve got the receipts: Yelp even links to the proof against Burgerim, as is their delightfully shady policy. In this case, it’s a form letter from the chain’s corporate office to would-be influencers that offers one complimentary combo meal in exchange for Instagram posts and five-star Yelp reviews.
A suspicious review alert on Burgerim’s Yelp page
Yelp has been cracking down on paid reviews with particular emphasis since 2016, publicizing those crackdowns under a “Consumer Alert” push. (A visit to any Burgerim page now comes with a pop-up explanation from Yelp reading: “We wanted you to know because buying reviews not only hurts consumers, but also honest businesses who play by the rules.”) Recently, the company rolled out similar warnings of “Suspicious Review Activity” for businesses with many reviews made via the same IP address — i.e. possibly by the same person or group of people — or generated through a “review ring,” a group of people or fake accounts that post positive reviews for money. Yelp says it recently closed more than 400 accounts associated with one such review ring, caught by a third-party agency it hired to solicit paid reviews across the web.
More Yelp alerts, which include highlighting restaurants with poor health scores, don’t typically endear the tech company to businesses on its platform — which, to be real, have never much cared for Yelp. Still, Yelp is increasingly making its case to customers, framing itself as a sort of online consumer watchdog, the Elizabeth Warren of review sites. And its platform, though problematic, is still a powerful one: 100 million users look at Yelp every month on desktop, and 73 million on mobile.
But among bigger global competitors like TripAdvisor (490 million monthly users) — on which a third of reviews were fake according to a 2018 Times of London investigation — Yelp, a company with $942 million in revenue last year, sees itself as a trustworthy underdog. Vis-a-vis Google, with which Yelp has been locked in a bitter feud for more than a decade, Yelp casts itself as David taking on Goliath. Since Google can bury Yelp in its search results and prioritize its own ratings and reviews, Yelp says it must work harder to establish trust, developing features like consumer alerts.
“[Yelp] needs to find ways to get consumer traffic,” Yelp’s VP of communications Vince Sollitto tells Eater. “To earn it, we do everything we can, because we’ve always prioritized trust.”
Yes, everything it can, including “review ring” sting operations. But in the case of Burgerim, it’s not necessarily customers, but would-be franchise operators, that could use a warning. This month, Senator Dianne Feinstein encouraged the FTC to investigate Burgerim for its allegedly “false or misleading sales tactics” to seduce franchisees, and now both Maryland and Washington have revoked the chain’s right to sell franchises. Now that’s a serious consumer alert that has nothing to do with David M. in Chicago taking a free burger in exchange for a five-star rave.
A “smooth” PB&J sandwich broke the internet’s brain and also maybe mine
“Mods are asleep post smooth food,” began a tweet posted two weeks ago that showed two discernibly sleek triangles with layers of white, purple, and brown — coupled with the word “food” in the tweet, it suggested a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that had been sanded down to an appealing flatness, or a block of putty molded into something your brain wants you to put into your mouth. The smooth PB&J kicked off a viral thread with others posting photos of different foods alike in their featureless texture, an equal mix of bizarre and alluring: desserts topped with glassy and glossy mirror glazes; pancakes so round and poreless they look like CGI; jellies and puddings perfectly molded in the shape of their vessels; foods uncannily made to look like other foods; improbable, plastic-looking objects; the ultimate forbidden foods, as beautiful as they are dangerously inedible.
What is it about smooth food — not a recognizable style of cooking or genre of dining, by any means — that captivated so many people? Even more to the point, what is smooth food?
Smooth food is not just a gastronomic preference, it’s an aesthetic lifestyle.
Smooth food is food without bite to it. Preternaturally leveled mashed potatoes, soups, smoothies (duh), yogurt, apple sauce, soft scrambled eggs, Jell-O, cottage cheese — just let it dissolve on your tongue and slip down your gullet, as frictionless as pureed vegetables and fruits for toothless infants.
I had some trouble with cooking pancakes on the stove today so I thought of resorting to the rice cooker to cook the rest of the batter.
Smooth food is baby food, and the plastic fake foods we played with as children, pretending to serve our parents whole tomatoes and uncooked ribeyes. Smooth food is a return to childhood; all we want is to be baby.
Smooth food is an antidote to the ultra-high-clarity, sharpened-to-the-max, faux-HDR look that dominates popular #foodporn Instagrams. That aesthetic is battered, submerged in oil, and fried crispy, a sensory overload; smooth food is a sensory suppressant, a soothing Ambien for your eyes. It’s a relief from the anxiety of trypophobia; there are no holes here.
Photo: Lukasz Nowak via WikimediaInjera: not smooth food!!!
Smooth food is the ironic-non-ironic memetic desire to obliterate the wrinkles of Yoda and Bernie Sanders, and to buff out the folds in your own brain until all that remains is a glossy orb. It is the ASMR-esque sensation of watching bars of lustrous soap being whittled down to nothing.
Smooth food is for when you want to close your eyes and rest your head, senses off, save for the heightened feeling of running your fingertips over the satiny surface of a plane that never ends; it continues, uninterrupted, in all directions. Imagine, briefly, if all noise on Twitter ceased to exist, leaving just an infinite scroll of blessed silence. Such is smooth.
The alcohol-abstaining month is over, but bars are still feeling the effects on their bottom lines
Whatever you think about Dry January, it’s over. Everyone is back to freely drinking or not drinking with no hashtags attached. But for many bars, Dry January has left a lasting impact. January has always been a slow time for the cocktail industry, with clientele either resolving to be healthier or just too tapped out from holiday partying to go out. And in recent years, “wellness,” self-care, and being “sober curious” have led millennials and Gen Zers to drink less, and contributed to the rise of nonalcoholic cocktails and beers. But the increased visibility and popularity of Dry January has led some in the industry to blame the practice on slower sales and fewer tips. And bartenders are figuring out how to adapt to this new, drier reality.
As a bartender I want to say, fuck you guys and your dry January
For proprietors of bars whose clientele fits that demographic, this January appeared particularly rough. In the U.K., retail sales of alcohol were down 20 percent last month. Zac Hoffman, head bartender at La Jambe in D.C.’s Union Market, says he really noticed a change this year compared to years past. It wasn’t just that people wouldn’t go out, but that when they did, they weren’t ordering alcohol. “People tipped normally, but with a lower check average that meant I was feeling the loss at every seat,” he says.
Dea Pierre, bar manager and bartender at Le Song, says, “I’ve worked in bars that made $40,000 to $60,000 weekly but as soon as January hits, it’s an average of $20,000 to $30,000 if they’re fortunate,” noting that bars’ traditional January struggles might be more to blame. Still, she has anecdotally noticed more of her friends and colleagues participating in Dry January. Rachel Knox, a bartender at MeMe’s Diner in Brooklyn, says this year felt far slower than last January, estimating it was “25 percent less busy” than last year. As a neighborhood restaurant, MeMe’s sales were possibly affected by “healthy” eating resolutions, and Knox is used to slow January sales everywhere. But what shocked Knox wasn’t the slump, but that February 1 was the busiest night they’d had since Thanksgiving, with the highest alcohol sales. “All the staff were like, ‘Oh...was it really [Dry January]?’” she says.
Hoffman stresses that it’s not sober people’s fault that business is strained, but that societal norms dictate that one tips less on a nonalcoholic drink than an alcoholic one. He noticed that nondrinking guests appreciated being able to have no-proof cocktails that were more interesting than yet another Diet Coke, but noted, “often they are surprised to see a comparable charge for the NA drink, or simply refuse to tip normally as if because I didn’t pick up a bottle of liquor ‘it’s not a real drink.’” That, he argues, needs to change. “We want to be supporting good choices for our guests, no matter what those are.”
But ultimately, bars exist to sell alcohol, and anything that threatens those sales threatens jobs. “We are in the business of selling wine and spirits, the entire model is built on that,” says Hoffman. “Seeing a trend like this is going to affect business, and that in turn hurts workers.”
Bartenders may understandably balk at any trend that keeps people from frequenting their business. However, other bartenders aren’t so sure Dry January is solely to blame for January numbers. According to InsideHook, Americans actually bought more beer this past January than in any January since 2015. Elliott Sussman, a bartender working in Pittsburgh, says that Dry January hasn’t changed much in his business. January has always been a time when people have tried out “healthier” resolutions and reined in spending after holiday shopping and partying. Also, it’s gross outside. “You can double down on this with the weather not being as kind in January, musicians/events not touring/happening for fear of the weather not being as kind, and general lack of stimulating events,” he says.
Bartender Sarim Al-Rawi says January is always “shit for bars,” and that the economy and the election news cycle may be affecting sales, as not many bars are the type of place where you want to watch a debate. Dry January is also more likely to affect sales in bars that cater to people who have heard of Dry January. Marc Butcavage, who manages Nobody Told Me on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and who has worked around New York since 2013, tells Eater he serves a far more diverse clientele now than he did in the East Village, which means less Dry January influence. “I find the Dry January approach to be a largely millennial construct, and a lot of our older guests probably aren’t drinking enough to feel they need a whole month off, and are more likely to be financially secure and to not need to do it for economic reasons,” he says.
If Dry January does affect sales, it’s because the project is also affected by larger trends, namely stagnant wages. One of the oft-touted benefits of Dry January is saving money, and whether people are explicitly participating in Dry January or not, it’s easier to just say no to going out in January. However, Butcavage says bars love a scapegoat: “Even though it’s probably indicative of a larger economic issue, that’s not as easy as blaming a broad movement in the zeitgeist.” And for Pierre, there’s always a bounce back. Despite everyone’s well-meaning resolutions, “all it takes is Valentine’s Day in February and St. Patty’s in March for that to go all out the window.”
Complaints about Dry January, whether it is the cause of bars’ woes or not, belie a bigger issue. Dry January is a symptom of the longer-term change many people are looking to make regarding alcohol culture. But any long-term change is bound to cause short-term problems. Drinking less, as a society, means fewer drinks bought in bars. Stagnant wages means fewer dollars being spent on “frivolous” things like cocktails. This means bars have to get more creative. Hoffman says he’s looking to change up his menu to include more inventive mocktails. Pierre says bars often cut back on staffing, or offer more discounts for the month. Industry sites have recommended bars host trivia nights and watch parties to boost January attendance. But some bartenders resent the idea that they have to change their business. “At the end of the day, you came here for one thing only — this is a bar,” says Al-Rawi. “You don’t go to a tire shop for sneakers.”
To keep business afloat, the culture around service also has to change. While someone who is not drinking may be used to accompanying their friends to a bar and sipping on a $2 Diet Coke, Hoffman says that when the nonalcoholic menu is as thoughtful and creative as the cocktail one, it’s important to remember “the service being provided is in no way different from someone who is imbibing,” and that customers can’t balk at prices on five-ingredient drinks just because there’s no liquor in them. A bar is a place to socialize and commune, to relax and read or avoid your roommates, a home outside of your home. That sort of service, at least until rent is eliminated, is worth paying for.
Blue Apron is launching meal kits designed to be cooked in advance. | Photo: Blue Apron
Plus, Dirty Lemon hits Walmart shelves, and more news to start your day
Meal kit company Blue Apron is adding meal prep kits
Blue Apron, the company best known for delivering meal kits that come with all the ingredients prepped and portioned out, is now delivering meal kits that come with all the ingredients prepped and portioned out for the purpose of ensuring an entire week’s worth of meals can be prepped and portioned out. In other words, Blue Apron is launching meal prep delivery kits.
Meal prep, AKA the art of strategic leftovers, has been a big trend the past few years, popular among consumers looking to control their diets, people looking to save money, and those who just want to save time. There are entire Instagram accounts dedicated to showing off neat, uniform rows of meals prepared on Sunday and meant to last through the week. Blue Apron’s new offering promises a total of eight servings of two to four different dishes, made in 90 minutes to two hours, compared to the 30 minutes it might take to throw together a fresh Blue Apron meal on an average weeknight. “We’ve specifically chosen proteins, recipes, and cuisines that lend themselves well to being made ahead of time and enjoyed later,” Blue Apron writes in its FAQ.
While Blue Apron already basically had a foot in the meal prep space through its packaging and streamlining of meals to remove any obstacles to cooking, now the kit delivery service can say it’s all in. Let the overhead-shot Instagrams commence!
And in other news…
Dirty Lemon, the pricey wellness-ish drink once known for being sold via text message, will soon be available on Walmart shelves. [CNN]
Opening more grocery stores could reduce food waste in cities, since people would be able to make shorter, more frequent shopping trips, and stores would be able to keep smaller inventories, according to a new study. [Modern Farmer]
LeBron James “has the worst fucking diet ever,” including french toast drowned in syrup, omelettes, and tons of sweets, says former teammate Tristan Thompson. Sign me up! [NY Post]
Swiss chocolatier Barry Callebaut — the inventor of ruby chocolate — wants to be the one who brings 3D-printed chocolate to the masses, thanks to its new studio that can produce the chocolate at scale. [Insider]
On Eater’s Digest, we talk dating strategies with our team and a bartender
A frequent request we get at Eater from both readers and colleagues is first date venue suggestions. People want something casual but not dumpy, busy but not too packed, a place that’s convenient but not boring. So this week on the Eater Digest podcast, we spoke with Julia Rubin and Rebecca Jennings from The Goods, a string of Eater editors and writers, and bartender Jack Schramm to discuss, assess, and analyze first date spots and strategies.
Is a tasting menu completely out of the question? What about a trap to weed out picky eaters? Do you have the date pick so you can judge them, or focus on maximizing your enjoyment of the bar? And, of course, we hear about what not to do and first dates gone awry.
A “smooth” PB&J sandwich broke the internet’s brain and also maybe mine
“Mods are asleep post smooth food,” began a tweet posted two weeks ago that showed two discernibly sleek triangles with layers of white, purple, and brown — coupled with the word “food” in the tweet, it suggested a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that had been sanded down to an appealing flatness, or a block of putty molded into something your brain wants you to put into your mouth. The smooth PB&J kicked off a viral thread with others posting photos of different foods alike in their featureless texture, an equal mix of bizarre and alluring: desserts topped with glassy and glossy mirror glazes; pancakes so round and poreless they look like CGI; jellies and puddings perfectly molded in the shape of their vessels; foods uncannily made to look like other foods; improbable, plastic-looking objects; the ultimate forbidden foods, as beautiful as they are dangerously inedible.
What is it about smooth food — not a recognizable style of cooking or genre of dining, by any means — that captivated so many people? Even more to the point, what is smooth food?
Smooth food is not just a gastronomic preference, it’s an aesthetic lifestyle.
Smooth food is food without bite to it. Preternaturally leveled mashed potatoes, soups, smoothies (duh), yogurt, apple sauce, soft scrambled eggs, Jell-O, cottage cheese — just let it dissolve on your tongue and slip down your gullet, as frictionless as pureed vegetables and fruits for toothless infants.
I had some trouble with cooking pancakes on the stove today so I thought of resorting to the rice cooker to cook the rest of the batter.
Smooth food is baby food, and the plastic fake foods we played with as children, pretending to serve our parents whole tomatoes and uncooked ribeyes. Smooth food is a return to childhood; all we want is to be baby.
Smooth food is an antidote to the ultra-high-clarity, sharpened-to-the-max, faux-HDR look that dominates popular #foodporn Instagrams. That aesthetic is battered, submerged in oil, and fried crispy, a sensory overload; smooth food is a sensory suppressant, a soothing Ambien for your eyes. It’s a relief from the anxiety of trypophobia; there are no holes here.
Photo: Lukasz Nowak via WikimediaInjera: not smooth food!!!
Smooth food is the ironic-non-ironic memetic desire to obliterate the wrinkles of Yoda and Bernie Sanders, and to buff out the folds in your own brain until all that remains is a glossy orb. It is the ASMR-esque sensation of watching bars of lustrous soap being whittled down to nothing.
Smooth food is for when you want to close your eyes and rest your head, senses off, save for the heightened feeling of running your fingertips over the satiny surface of a plane that never ends; it continues, uninterrupted, in all directions. Imagine, briefly, if all noise on Twitter ceased to exist, leaving just an infinite scroll of blessed silence. Such is smooth.
The alcohol-abstaining month is over, but bars are still feeling the effects on their bottom lines
Whatever you think about Dry January, it’s over. Everyone is back to freely drinking or not drinking with no hashtags attached. But for many bars, Dry January has left a lasting impact. January has always been a slow time for the cocktail industry, with clientele either resolving to be healthier or just too tapped out from holiday partying to go out. And in recent years, “wellness,” self-care, and being “sober curious” have led millennials and Gen Zers to drink less, and contributed to the rise of nonalcoholic cocktails and beers. But the increased visibility and popularity of Dry January has led some in the industry to blame the practice on slower sales and fewer tips. And bartenders are figuring out how to adapt to this new, drier reality.
As a bartender I want to say, fuck you guys and your dry January
For proprietors of bars whose clientele fits that demographic, this January appeared particularly rough. In the U.K., retail sales of alcohol were down 20 percent last month. Zac Hoffman, head bartender at La Jambe in D.C.’s Union Market, says he really noticed a change this year compared to years past. It wasn’t just that people wouldn’t go out, but that when they did, they weren’t ordering alcohol. “People tipped normally, but with a lower check average that meant I was feeling the loss at every seat,” he says.
Dea Pierre, bar manager and bartender at Le Song, says, “I’ve worked in bars that made $40,000 to $60,000 weekly but as soon as January hits, it’s an average of $20,000 to $30,000 if they’re fortunate,” noting that bars’ traditional January struggles might be more to blame. Still, she has anecdotally noticed more of her friends and colleagues participating in Dry January. Rachel Knox, a bartender at MeMe’s Diner in Brooklyn, says this year felt far slower than last January, estimating it was “25 percent less busy” than last year. As a neighborhood restaurant, MeMe’s sales were possibly affected by “healthy” eating resolutions, and Knox is used to slow January sales everywhere. But what shocked Knox wasn’t the slump, but that February 1 was the busiest night they’d had since Thanksgiving, with the highest alcohol sales. “All the staff were like, ‘Oh…was it really [Dry January]?’” she says.
Hoffman stresses that it’s not sober people’s fault that business is strained, but that societal norms dictate that one tips less on a nonalcoholic drink than an alcoholic one. He noticed that nondrinking guests appreciated being able to have no-proof cocktails that were more interesting than yet another Diet Coke, but noted, “often they are surprised to see a comparable charge for the NA drink, or simply refuse to tip normally as if because I didn’t pick up a bottle of liquor ‘it’s not a real drink.’” That, he argues, needs to change. “We want to be supporting good choices for our guests, no matter what those are.”
But ultimately, bars exist to sell alcohol, and anything that threatens those sales threatens jobs. “We are in the business of selling wine and spirits, the entire model is built on that,” says Hoffman. “Seeing a trend like this is going to affect business, and that in turn hurts workers.”
Bartenders may understandably balk at any trend that keeps people from frequenting their business. However, other bartenders aren’t so sure Dry January is solely to blame for January numbers. According to InsideHook, Americans actually bought more beer this past January than in any January since 2015. Elliott Sussman, a bartender working in Pittsburgh, says that Dry January hasn’t changed much in his business. January has always been a time when people have tried out “healthier” resolutions and reined in spending after holiday shopping and partying. Also, it’s gross outside. “You can double down on this with the weather not being as kind in January, musicians/events not touring/happening for fear of the weather not being as kind, and general lack of stimulating events,” he says.
Bartender Sarim Al-Rawi says January is always “shit for bars,” and that the economy and the election news cycle may be affecting sales, as not many bars are the type of place where you want to watch a debate. Dry January is also more likely to affect sales in bars that cater to people who have heard of Dry January. Marc Butcavage, who manages Nobody Told Me on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and who has worked around New York since 2013, tells Eater he serves a far more diverse clientele now than he did in the East Village, which means less Dry January influence. “I find the Dry January approach to be a largely millennial construct, and a lot of our older guests probably aren’t drinking enough to feel they need a whole month off, and are more likely to be financially secure and to not need to do it for economic reasons,” he says.
If Dry January does affect sales, it’s because the project is also affected by larger trends, namely stagnant wages. One of the oft-touted benefits of Dry January is saving money, and whether people are explicitly participating in Dry January or not, it’s easier to just say no to going out in January. However, Butcavage says bars love a scapegoat: “Even though it’s probably indicative of a larger economic issue, that’s not as easy as blaming a broad movement in the zeitgeist.” And for Pierre, there’s always a bounce back. Despite everyone’s well-meaning resolutions, “all it takes is Valentine’s Day in February and St. Patty’s in March for that to go all out the window.”
Complaints about Dry January, whether it is the cause of bars’ woes or not, belie a bigger issue. Dry January is a symptom of the longer-term change many people are looking to make regarding alcohol culture. But any long-term change is bound to cause short-term problems. Drinking less, as a society, means fewer drinks bought in bars. Stagnant wages means fewer dollars being spent on “frivolous” things like cocktails. This means bars have to get more creative. Hoffman says he’s looking to change up his menu to include more inventive mocktails. Pierre says bars often cut back on staffing, or offer more discounts for the month. Industry sites have recommended bars host trivia nights and watch parties to boost January attendance. But some bartenders resent the idea that they have to change their business. “At the end of the day, you came here for one thing only — this is a bar,” says Al-Rawi. “You don’t go to a tire shop for sneakers.”
To keep business afloat, the culture around service also has to change. While someone who is not drinking may be used to accompanying their friends to a bar and sipping on a $2 Diet Coke, Hoffman says that when the nonalcoholic menu is as thoughtful and creative as the cocktail one, it’s important to remember “the service being provided is in no way different from someone who is imbibing,” and that customers can’t balk at prices on five-ingredient drinks just because there’s no liquor in them. A bar is a place to socialize and commune, to relax and read or avoid your roommates, a home outside of your home. That sort of service, at least until rent is eliminated, is worth paying for.
Photo: Disney+/Scott A. Miller 
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Alchemist | 
Felipe Reyes, the owner of Las Delicias de Mexico, hands out free tacos on behalf of candidate Tom Steyer at an early voting site in Las Vegas /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19726431/Vegas_Culinary_0425.jpg)
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Some kitchen “hacks” may work, but a lot of the ones promoted in viral clickbait do not. | Photo: 
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arnaud’s bar | 
Thai jelly: smooth food. | Photo: /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19720381/Injera_Texture.jpg)
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Blue Apron is launching meal kits designed to be cooked in advance. | Photo: Blue Apron 
