Hooray, it’s nicetimes!
Okay, it’s undoubtedly not nicetimes. However when one thing beautiful occurs, we must always shout it from the rooftops. So ¡Enhorabuena! to humanitarian chef José Andrés, who’s opening a brand new restaurant within the Outdated Submit Workplace constructing, AKA the previous dwelling of the Trump Lodge in DC.
Andrés, the Spanish-born entrepreneur whose World Central Kitchen feeds catastrophe victims worldwide, was scheduled to open a restaurant in the identical location seven years in the past. He’d even met with Ivanka Trump concerning the ability’s design, however after then-candidate Donald Trump made racist rants in opposition to Mexican immigrants the central function of his marketing campaign, Andrés pulled out of the deal.
“What may be easier or extra precisely acknowledged? The Mexican Authorities is forcing their most undesirable individuals into the USA,” Trump mentioned in July of 2015. “They’re, in lots of instances, criminals, drug sellers, rapists, and so on.”
“Merely put, Mr. Trump’s feedback made ThinkFoodGroup’s participation on this challenge inconceivable and constituted a breach which the owner, Trump Outdated Submit Workplace LLC, refused to treatment. And regardless of our makes an attempt to barter an amicable decision, we have been finally pressured to terminate the lease,” Andrés’s ThinkFoodGroup mentioned on the time.
Trump filed a $10 million breach of contract declare, and ThinkFoodGroup countersued, submitting an $8 million go well with alleging that Trump’s feedback made it inconceivable to rent employees. The claims have been settled in 2017, in a sealed deal, with each side releasing optimistic statements in regards to the different.
The Trump Lodge opened one other restaurant, BLT Prime, which turned the official assembly place of Rudy Giuliani’s Ukrainium One squad and Trumplanders, who have been fairly certain that they ran a greater than 50-50 probability of getting spit of their meals at different native eateries.
Plus they acquired to place cash in Poppy Trump’s pocket — win-win!
However no extra. Trump is gone, and the resort just lately reopened as a Waldorf-Astoria. BLT Prime, actually the one restaurant in DC that Trump deigned to go to, is out. Bazaar, an outpost of Andrés’s signature high-concept household of eating places, will open later this yr.
“To me, it’s very symbolic, to open this restaurant within the coronary heart of town, to carry Bazaar to town that gave me a lot of who I’m,” Andrés advised the Washington Submit.
He did not even take the chance to speak shit about Trump, as a result of José Andrés is a category act.
“I don’t assume it’s dangerous spirits,” he laughed when requested if he would burn sage or conduct another cleaning ritual earlier than reopening within the house. “The individuals who labored in that resort are good individuals, they’re Washingtonians, like me, they usually handled everybody with respect.”
And within the face of such decency and sincerity, Your Wonkette will forego our ordinary snark and simply say, God bless.
[WaPo]
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