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Plus, vendors of Brooklyn’s popular sidewalk cocktail “the nutcracker” are reporting lower sales right now — and more intel
Is Danny Meyer’s time as NYC’s leading hospitality voice over?
As New York City reckons with systemic racism in its police departments, the city’s hospitality industry is considering what to do about the history of racism, gender inequity, and exclusion in its restaurants. In order to meaningfully address those issues, though, the hospitality industry may need to leave its previous generation of white thought leaders — like Danny Meyer — behind, argues Adam Reiner, a writer with food blog the Restaurant Manifesto in a new opinion piece.
Over the last three decades, Meyer has built his empire of 15 Union Square Hospitality restaurants — along with the international Shake Shack empire — on an “employees first” motto. His restaurant group is one of the few big groups in NYC that has offered its employees access to human resources, or set hiring goals for inclusion and diversity. His now-famous book, Setting the Table, is also still considered a leading text by those in the industry close to 15 years after it was published. As Eater wrote in 2018, he’s “the rare restaurateur who is more famous than any of the chefs he employs.”
But that legacy has its limits, Reiner argues. The ethos behind Setting the Table and Meyer’s track record of opening successful restaurants is based mostly on white, European cultures, Reiner writes, which has led to a “whitewashing” of success in the hospitality industry. “To hasten meaningful progress, we need a new generation of leaders,” he says. “If we leave it to the same white restaurateurs like Danny to address the problem without demanding institutional change, the quantity of jobs for people of color may rise, but those individuals will still be subsumed by appropriation and tokenization.”
In recent years, USHG has come under fire due to issues of racial and gender inequity at its restaurants. Rather than emerging as a thought leader in hospitality, Reiner writes, the company has increasingly had to play catch-up, often as a result of its employees speaking up. His article comes on the heels of an internal letter co-signed by 200 current and former USHG employees, in which they demanded that Meyer take action to address the systemic racism that runs through his company. Meanwhile, in 2018, an investigation by Eater found that the company had reportedly mishandled allegations of sexual misconduct among its staffers for years.
In other news
— Vendors of Brooklyn’s favorite sidewalk cocktail, the nutcracker, are reporting lower sales now that bars, restaurants, and out-of-work food service employees are also selling bottled cocktails to-go.
— In Sunnyside, Queens, restaurateurs report that opening for outdoor seating may not be possible given that the streets haven’t been cleaned in “three and a half months, almost four months.”
— Hit NYC ice cream company Oddfellows is working with clothing brand Flan on a line of branded “Flanfellows” merchandise and a new summer flavor, available June 29, according to a company spokesperson.
— With no baseball games on the calendar, bars and restaurants near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx are at risk of closing permanently.
— Times critic Pete Wells eats his first sit-down meal in months at the East Village’s 24-hour corner diner Veselka.
— Donated dip cups of Mike’s Hot Honey may be coming to a slice shop near you.
— At this point:
Oh no pic.twitter.com/vp1P1JIdfF
— Emily Herring is extremely online (@EtheHerring) June 23, 2020