Texas Reopens as New York Takes a Step Back

A dining dome at East Eats, a new restaurant in Detroit | East Eats [Courtesy photo]

From the Editor: Everything you missed in food news last week

This post originally appeared on October 10, 2020 in Amanda Kludt’s newsletter “From the Editor,” a roundup of the most vital news and stories in the food world each week. Read the archives and subscribe now.

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I jam-packed this newsletter with stories from our sites this week, about, among other things, new reopenings and closings, BLTs as breakfast food, and the challenge of winterizing restaurants, so let’s jump right in:

News

The hammer and the dance: Texas bars are allowed to reopen, pending approval from local judges (so Dallas drinkers are still out of luck, but bars outside Austin are back in action). New York’s indoor dining continues, but large swaths of Brooklyn and Queens are facing new restrictions. And LA could reopen for indoor dining by the end of the month.

If you thought other countries had this under control, take note: Montreal restaurants remain closed for the month and various European capitals are experimenting with curfews and full closures.

The coming winter: Chicago announced the winners of its competition to rethink outdoor dining, tiny plastic homes for dining arrived in New York, Boston restaurants are selling branded sweatshirts and blankets, and a new Detroit restaurant serving guests in canvas-backed geodesic domes looks pretty appealing right now.

More news of note: Developers in Boston are proposing bringing back a zombified version of a 137-year-old bar that closed last year to make way for their large mixed-use development; Seattle’s version of SF’s Chinese food hall and market China Live has been delayed another year; the Glass Incident Fire continues to destroy wineries and resorts in the Napa region, and it won’t be fully contained for another two weeks; Mitchell Davis stepped down from his role at the James Beard Foundation after a 25-year run and a controversial summer; Yelp now alerts diners when businesses are associated with racist conduct; and Dave Chang is having another go at a ghost-kitchen Fuku.

And over at Vox, my colleague Matty Yglesias has a great explainer on why it’s been such an uphill battle for the HEROES act (which includes billions for restaurants) and what it will take to get actual traction on this issue. The UK, with all its problems, is at least well ahead of us on this front.

Rey Lopez/Eater D.C.

Pakhlava at new D.C. bakery Sharbat

Appreciations, Head-scratchers, and Miscellany

— A big public thank you to Elazar for introducing me to Japanese sweet potato instagram.

— Wow, BLTs should be a breakfast food.

— A collection of Seattle’s iconic food and restaurant signs.

— Love the story of the 75-year-old lady who used to cater church events and then pivoted, mid-pandemic, to opening her own Indonesian restaurant and takeout operation.

— You need something more powerful than a pandemic to kill pop-up holiday bars.

— Damn, these desserts from a new Azerbaijani bakery in D.C. look incredible.

— It’s unfortunate that a hotel with a female empowerment theme employs a man as the head chef. It’s perhaps more unfortunate that it sells cocktails named, literally, Empowerment and Shoulder to Shoulder, and will feature a mural of RGB made out of tampons.

Patricia Chang

SF Bay “boquerones” on avocado-tomato toasts at Anchovy Bar

Notable Openings/Closings

Closures: Celeb chef Eddie Huang’s Baohaus and Chinatown dumpling legend Lan Zhou 88 in New York; longstanding gay club CC Slaughters and fine dining standout Holdfast Dining in Portland; nightlife stalwart Beauty Bar and 40-year-old hibachi grill Kobe Steaks in Dallas; Wolfgang Puck Steak in Detroit; Estiatorios Milos in Las Vegas; and Nak Won House, a Koreatown icon, in Los Angeles.

Openings: Anchovy Bar, the newest restaurant from the Statebird Provisions crew, in San Francisco; Seattle’s eagerly and long-anticipated location of Chengdu Taste; Encina, a hotly anticipated Southern restaurant, in Dallas; Hanchic, an exciting new, fusion-y Korean restaurant, in LA; and East End Backyard, a sports bar (and dog park!) owned by a soccer star in Houston.

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