Welcome to Open Tab, a weekly column covering the news, gossip, and stories that have stayed open in my tabs all week. Last time we covered Italy’s looming food shortage.
Well, it’s over. Last Ditch, the bar in Greenfield Massachusetts that became the center of a tornado of scrutiny, ridicule, discourse, and, erm, media coverage a few weeks ago is now closed as it searches for new co-owners, or to sell the bar to new owners. If your memory needs a refresh, the tl;dr is that the bar relaxed its COVID-conscious mask restrictions, and it tore the local community apart.
The Boston Globe covered the drama, and the story quickly went viral. But despite—or perhaps because of—its newfound infamy, the bar couldn’t attract enough clientele to stay open. Could new owners resurrect the beleaguered business?
Also in the discourse this week: Washington D.C. residents will be voting on a foie gras ban which has prominent chefs coming out as firmly pro-foie, despite public backlash. José Andrés argues that the American food system also mistreats many other animals—and that we have bigger issues, like child hunger, to address.
Also in today’s Open Tab: why The Cheesecake Factory has made headlines this week, how salmon could decide Alaska’s midterm elections, a delivery platform acquisition for the ages, and a look inside LA’s buzzy Skywalker Grill.
“Now why am I in it?” The Cheesecake Factory, probably
This week the Cheesecake Factory’s name was splashed across headlines in a handful of national magazines and newspapers—a feat that hasn’t happened since…ever? It’s hard to say.
This story starts last weekend, when former president Barack Obama made a joke at a campaign rally in Ohio. “[President Trump’s] got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory. Just gold everywhere,” he said.
Trump himself responded on Monday. “For you to say it’s a Cheesecake Factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president,” he told reporters. The White House X account followed up with some AI-generated trolling.
Rick McCormack, the chain’s former vice president of design, also weighed in. “I think it’s a little bit sad that the pettiness of politics would create that sound bite, knowing all our challenges going on in the country today,” he said.
Is the Cheesecake Factory designed to look like it was done by an Egypt-obsessed kid with an unrestricted budget and a lot of ambition? Yes. But that’s part of its charm. You need a maximalist setting to match a maximalist menu, a maximalist experience. As I see it, The Cheesecake Factory is designed as it is so that ordering an “all day morning cocktail” (?), or a slice of “Brownie Crunch Choc-o-Lot Cheesecake” suddenly doesn’t seem so crazy. The Cheesecake Factory, as we were reminded again and again this week, is an American institution. So, unfortunately, is a quips-based, sound-byte-heavy political system.
