Updated: Seattle Chefs Turn Inauguration Day into Day of Action

Election-related angst is being met with action from at least two major Seattle chefs on President-Elect Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day, this Friday, January 20.

Renee Erickson, the 2016 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef: Northwest for her restaurant The Whale Wins, is closing her Bar Melusine and hosting an invite-only party at her own expense to benefit the Anti-Defamation League, which aims to, in her words, “fight hate: there is no them, only us.”

She’s called upon her colleagues in the industry to do the same, reports The Seattle Times: “I have to do something, and I hope you will join me...” with a dinner or event that involves sending “proceeds, profits, or some percentage of sales that day given to ADL to help combat hate and create a community of inclusion,” or “come up with something that feels right” to them.

Josh Henderson of the Huxley Wallace Collective is doing what feels right to him by hosting free dinners for “the low-income, single-parent, and houseless community” at Quality Athletics and Cantine “to help alleviate the anxiety associated with the inauguration of the Trump administration.” Those mealtimes will run from 3 to 5 p.m. and will include pasta, meatballs, Caesar salad, and pie. Anyone wanting to pitch in can drop off donations of blankets, canned food, socks, and cash.

Henderson writes in a press release, “I am super-excited to be doing this with our team… doing something that we hope brings a sense of community, in a time and on a day that perhaps we don’t feel that as strongly as we probably should.”

In a related effort, as noted in the latest round-up of food events in Seattle, Super Six is hosting a breakfast fundraiser prior to the anti-Trump Womxn’s March on Saturday, January 21. From 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., 100 percent of sales, including specials created for the occasion, will benefit Planned Parenthood in Washington and Hawaii.

If you’ve seen other food industry members reacting to the impending inauguration, please share.

Update, 1/19/17: Feed your pain with cocktails and Seattle’s best deep dish pizza, and help two good causes while you’re at it: Windy City Pie and Batch Bar are donating 20 percent of dine-in sales on January 20 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends civil liberties in the digital world, and Latino community advocacy group El Centro de la Raza, split evenly.

Update #2, 1/19/17: Count Mean Sandwich in. The new Ballard restaurant will donate the profits of all sales on January 20 to Mary’s Place, a nonprofit empowering homeless women, children, and families with shelter, food, and resources. The shop isn’t limiting its charitable angle to just Inauguration Day, either; each Wednesday, Mean Sandwich will pick a different nonprofit to receive $1 from each sandwich sale.

Update #3, 1/19/17: Delancey is also donating all of its proceeds from pizza sales tomorrow to the ACLU.

Update #4, 1/19/17: In response to Erickson’s call, Brimmer & Heeltap will be donating 20 percent of sales made from service this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (1/20-1/22) to Planned Parenthood and Lambert House.