I still remember the anticipation of family meal. Standing in the kitchen sniffing the garlic in the air wondering just what I was gonna eat that night.

And I know calling employees “family” is usually a red flag and often a sign that you’re anything but. Still, I loved family meal (the free shift meal you usually get when you work in a restaurant). There is a very specific nostalgia I have for those nights. The hum during a shift when you knew the chef was going to whip up something off menu, something a little weird and creative and low-key genius.

When I was a young restaurant employee, those meals expanded my palate. I would be in the kitchen as soon as my shift started, sniffing around, asking what was for family meal, trying to sneak a bite.

And as someone who has spent most of her adult life working in restaurants, that anticipation has never really left me.

Restaurants are where I learned how to operate independently. To see a problem and fix it before it became everyone’s problem. They were the opposite of the bureaucracy I struggle with inside the State Department. That’s where I learned exactly what happens when we lose that sense of agency.

Working in restaurants taught me my body’s limits and my capacity. Eight hours at a time sweating, lugging trays stacked heavy with glasses. Double shifts. Coming home with swollen feet and a head still buzzing from the noise, but a pocket full of cash and some of the wildest stories.

Restaurants are also where I first started to explore my love for food on a deeper level. Where I learned about ingredients and sourcing and flavor. Where I saw, close up, the joy that food brings to people and communities.

The pandemic. Political upheaval. Moving. Divorce. And honestly, routine.

I was posting about food, but I wasn’t tasting it in the same way. I watched my friends in the industry struggle with the fallout from the pandemic, while I was struggling with the flattening that social media brought to the food space. Then with Donald Trump back in office, I watched it get even harder for the restaurants and workers I love, especially in DC.

Somewhere in there, grief snuck in. Grief for what has been lost in this city. Grief for my own changing relationship to my work. Grief for my friends who are exhausted, pivoting, or quietly closing their doors.

At the end of the day, I’m just a bitch with a phone and a stubborn persistence that could drive you up the wall. But this year, I have committed to taking agency over what I can control. So it’s time to go back to the first lessons I learned in my very first restaurant job.

For years, I had a personal rule: I wouldn’t say anything negative publicly about a restaurant at all. I allowed myself no negative takes. Just silence.

That might sound kind, but as a small business owner, it’s actually stupid af to spend tens of thousands of dollars on food over the years and then never talk about a place because I have something critical to say.

That silence has also a huge part of why my love for food media has waned. I felt stifled.

How much could I really say when I only let myself share the good?

I’m moving from “never say anything negative” to a more measured approach of honest critique. No takedowns. No cruelty.

Like KJ so eloquently illustrates in his video, there is a way to give more critical perspective, without shitting on small businesses. That’s where I’m aiming to end up with my restaurant content.

On top of that, I am shifting the lens I bring to my reviews and my storytelling.

Literally and metaphorically, that question gets at what I think we are chasing when we go out to eat. I am looking for places where yes, the food is delicious, but the experience is also nourishing. Where I feel welcome. Where the menu, including the cocktails, has something for every version of me that might walk through the door. Where I can come back on a random Tuesday and feel like I am home.

When I think about the work that has felt the most alive the last few years, it has never been a single post. It has been doing things together. Sharing actual experiences instead of just content.

I know the magic lives in the laughter. In the sudden hush that falls over a table when everyone takes that first bite of something incredible. In the jokes passed back and forth like trading plates.

We are all craving that hum again.

That is what I am trying to build with the Unfiltered & Fed Supper Club.

This will be a series of experiences where we gather, dine, and meet new people. We’ll earn about the spots in our communities that might become our new regular haunts. And we’ll do it together, at real tables, in real time.

Because in a post-pandemic world full of political upheaval, scary headlines, and a certain sameness flattening the dining scene, we have to create spaces that resist isolation, that resist apathy.

We’re starting here, in the DC area, because the stakes here are very real. In 2025, DC lost thousands of hospitality jobs and at least 73 restaurants closed their doors. This Washington Post piece reads like a love letter and an obituary at the same time.

This is the city where I live and love, and it feels especially exposed to the impacts of this administration. It is a place that is, frankly, at risk of turning into a city full of Cheesecake Factories or corporate slop bowls.

Starting in March, I will begin opening the doors to the Unfiltered & Fed Supper Club. Supper Club will be open to all Unfiltered & Fed members, with tickets released on a first come, first served basis. We will gather at locally-owned restaurants, the exact places most at risk in this moment.

I will be there to host. I will bring my full self and my slightly corny get-to-know-you cards. Me and my team will build these nights to make it easier to sit down next to someone you do not know yet and leave with a story, a new regular spot, or even a new friend.

I can’t wait to dine with you.

Flow With Coco yoga studio in DC! I love this intimate Black woman-owned studio. Classes are so fun for all levels, the music is right, and I always leave feeling better than when I walked in.

How has your relationship with restaurants shifted lately? Are you dining out more or less? Or are you in a cozy nesting eating at home era?