Why "pop-up" restaurants are everywhere now

The post-covid pop-up boom, explained.

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From 2021 to 2022, one specific type of restaurant grew 105% in the US: pop-ups, or temporary restaurants. From 2022 to 2023 there were 155% 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 Jorge Aguilar & Amanda Rosa, chef & co-owners of the breakfast taco pop-up Border Town, their story starts in the pandemic. They were unemployed, and instead of trying to rent a space and open a brick and mortar restaurant, they started working 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?

Links and further reading:

Emma Orlow who we spoke to for this video is a writer for Eater. You can read her work here: https://www.eater.com/authors/emma-orlow

An awesome foodie newsletter we subscribed to while making this video: http://sweetcity.substack.com/

Other pop-ups we spoke to: https://austin.eater.com/2024/6/3/241... https://natecox.net/BIG-CHUNE-2

Yelp’s state of the restaurant industry 2024: https://data.yelp.com/state-of-the-re...

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