Per the linked story (via Fark) this concept sounds kind of neat, but my burg is a bit too small to support something cool like this. Have you ever been to an underground restaurant? What was it like?
Speakeasy cuisine Guided by word-of-mouth, diners flock to unlicensed restaurants for good food at bargain-basement prices
I’ve never been to any. My husband and I heard about them a few years ago and have been dying to find a connection or some info and check one out.
I think the the concept is pretty neat as well. I’d love to hear others experiences.
There’s a sushi restaurant in NYC I’ve heard of without a name, just an address, where they serve the fish in various ways that contravene city health codes. For one they supposedly behead a live salmon at the table and filet up sashimi while you can still see the heart beating.
I’ve never been, nor know the secret address, but I would go in a second.
As if eating out wasn’t already risky enough.
Seriously? The US has, as I understand it, the safest food supply in all of history. Eating out IS extremely safe.
I would not be at all worried about going to one of these restaurants, unless once I got there it looked sleazy.
Daniel
Actually, I don’t know why more people don’t do this. I don’t know what constitutes a “restaurant”. Is it the number of people you serve? Is it whether or not you charge? Whether or not you are in a business district? What exactly separates a restaurant from a guy who serves food to strangers?
A license.
Why would an unlicensed restaurant be cheaper than a licensed one?
I went to one in Harlem. On our way there, a couple guys crossing the street flashed gang signs at each other, and we walked by a guy showing Ivanhoe in 16mm on the sidewalk, complete with folding chairs. This is on New Year’s eve. Whee.
The ‘dining room’, at the sidewalk level of a brownstone, was sort of like a rec room from the 70’s. The food was quite good, but there was the going to the bathroom thing. It was to done only in the direst of emergencies. Basically you had to go through the kitchen, and upon returning from the bathroom/kitchen the women joked we should make sure we examine the raisins in our cous-cous carefully. All in all, it was fun, once.
When I was in Toastmasters, our club met for a few months in a glass-sided pavilion in back of a house belonging to an in-law of one of our members. Everybody paid a fee, and everybody got the same thing to eat. Then, one week Ron called us all up to say we couldn’t meet there anymore. They were busted for lack of license. We never had any doubts about the cleanliness or safety, but they were under the radar.
At the factory, there were three unlicensed food dealers. One dealt chili dogs and chips every Monday. One dealt bratwurst and smoked hot sausage every Wednesday. Another guy came to work every day with a cooler full of sandwiches and fresh fruit. It was not only unlicensed, it was against the factory rules. Management looked the other way, and they sometimes partook of the banquet.
I’d be concerned by a speakeasy that didn’t look sleazy.
Isn’t that largely because we require things like restaurant licensing?
And what’s the lifespan of these places, anyway? Surely, if the customers can hear of them, so can the Powers that Be. And once the health inspectors, etc. find out about a place, I’d expect it to get closed down in a hurry.
Other than “sticking it to the Man”, what would be the point, anyway? If they’re clean, safe, and healthy enough to want to eat there, then they’re probably clean, safe, and healthy enough to get a license, too.
I’ve gone to parties with hundreds of attendees. People typically “donate” like, $5.00 to cover beer and food. Is THAT considered a restaurant? If you serve four couples a gourmet meal every weekend and charge, say, $20 a head, is THAT considered a restaurant operating without a license? What distinguishes the need for a license versus just serving food and asking people to “kick in?”
IIRC in reading about these restaurants the main issue is the cost of leasing real estate, and the time and effort and expense involved in meeting (and specifically certifying that you’ve met) health codes, which is a hurdle for people that want to do this on a non-committed basis and/or a shoestring budget.
It’s the common bust of the college party.
Serving alcohol without a license.
If you take money, and in return give food and/or drink, you’re likely required to have a license to dispense the same. And required to follow the rules entailed in same.
The $5 was always the best spent money on a Friday night.
Same mentailty that drives a rave. Show up, have a ball, blow out. There’s a calculated risk in attending these sorts of things.
Also, there are places where they cook “smokies” – illegally imported and slaughtered meats. They don’t want the law to come down on them, so they’re designed to be mobile kitchens. I’m vaguely aware of a couple of these floating resturants in Atlanta, as I’ve eaten dishes bought from there from acquaintances of mine. I’ve never been IN one yet but it can’t be that hard.
What kind of meats? You mean like barbecue, or something else? I am intrigued!
I didn’t mean to leave you hanging, Lou.
Pork, fish and poultry are the only meats legally sold with their skin on. Smokies are smoked meats from goats, sheep and cattle where they are killed and left with the skin on, which is either slowly smoked or quickly torched with a blowtorch. It’s more problematic in the UK than in the United States but it seems to be pretty widespread underground here in certain ethnic groups in Atlanta. People from African countries especially pay a premium for these kinds of meat. It’s not barbeque but I don’t see why it can’t be used in barbeque.
I have to stress that this meat is NOT federally inspected nor slaughtered to U.S. standards and it is highly illegal to buy or sell. But I’ve smoked weed and eaten marijuana brownies, too, so neener, neener, neener.
Personally I have a high tolerance for this sort of thing. Way I figure it, the FDA has been around 65 years; humanity discovered smoked meats millenia ago. I suspect there’s more cultural bias, concern for animal suffering and kowtowing to the meat industry than any major health hazards here. YMMV, IANAFDAIOB. (… “FDA inspector or butcher.”)
I’ve sometimes frequented an vegan illegal restaurant, run by squatters in a squatted building, every Monday evening. You had to make a reservation by phone beforehand, and the telephonenumber went strictly word-to-mouth in the local squatter-circles.
It had a nice atmosphere, and the food was very cheap. It was the only vegan restaurant in town.