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Why “pop-up” restaurants are everywhere now
The post-Covid pop-up boom, explained.
Edward Vega joined the Vox video team as a video producer in 2021. His coverage focuses on all things cinema, from the intricacies of film history to the nuts and bolts of filmmaking.
From 2021 to 2022, one specific type of restaurant grew 105 percent in the US: pop-ups, or temporary restaurants. From 2022 to 2023 there were 155 percent more pop-ups. If you’re a foodie in a US city, it’s made the diversity of food you can get today higher than ever before. Why are so many chefs deciding to “pop up” all of a sudden?
To find out, we talked to the owners of two New York City pop-ups to get their stories. For chef Jorge Aguilar and Amanda Rosa, co-owners of the breakfast taco pop-up Border Town, their story starts during the pandemic. They were unemployed, and instead of trying to rent a space and open a brick-and-mortar restaurant, they started working in temporary locations, marketing themselves via Instagram. Eric Huang, chef and owner of Pecking House, a Sichuan-style fried chicken pandemic pop-up that became a brick-and-mortar restaurant, told us a similar story.
So how did these restaurateurs pivot during difficult times to ultimately find success?