The Problem with Pop-Ups

Earlier this month, a pop-up store in the Bowery promoting an Adidas and Arizona Iced Tea collaboration quickly ran out of their limited-run sneakers, causing hundreds of people to riot.  Now, I remembered hearing about this as it happened, but couldn’t recall the specific brands, so I gave it a quick google. As it turns out, googling “fight at pop-up” wasn’t particularly helpful, as this is not an isolated incident.  In 2017, fights broke out in the line of a Louis Vuitton pop-up in LA, causing it to be shut down before it even opened, and in 2013, violence erupted at a pop-up in New York promoting a Drake album after it ran out of shirts.   

For the most part, pop-up restaurants haven’t had these kinds of struggles, especially since most take a certain number of reservations in order to combat unruly lines.  However, there are other concerns that have arisen due to the constant flux of pop-ups. And I’m not just talking about how they make me write crazy shit like this.

First off, I don’t want to make this entirely about the fact that I’m bitter about living nowhere near any of the big pop-up cities, so I do want to point out that pop-ups used to, and in fact still do have a purpose.  Originally, they were outlets for chefs to try out something new, whether a new menu or an entirely new style of cuisine. Or, alternatively, they allowed aspiring chefs to be king for a day, without all the associated costs and risks of opening an entirely new restaurant in an already cut-throat industry.  However, such aspiring chefs have found that doing pop-up after pop-up “doesn’t help with lease negotiations” for when the day comes that they want to start their own restaurant.  

In direct contrast to that last point, part of my problem with pop-ups is that the concept now seems to have been co-opted by corporations can afford to take said risks, but prefer to cash in on the exclusivity of limited-run engagements.  A copy of the Double R Diner sprung up to promote the third season of Twin Peaks, and reportedly served coffee that was anything but “damn good.”  A Saved by the Bell-themed pop up existed at some point in 2018, for all three of the people who were still thinking about Saved by the Bell in 2018.  This flavor of pop-up seems to be catering to those who are strictly looking for a photo op, and could care less about the food.  

Can pop-ups still have a purpose?  Of course. They can be a celebration of smaller city’s local food scenes, such as this Omaha charcuterie pop-up, where many of the chefs involved hoped to reinvigorate their city’s Or they can be used to raise awareness on different issues, such as this Toronto pop-up with a fully HIV-positive staff, aimed at educating the public against the stigma surrounding the disease. 

In the same breath, however, another Toronto chef opened a “dome-themed” pop-up in a highway underpass- two weeks after a tent city in an underpass on that same highway had been cleared out by city officials- and, in the ensuing PR backlash, failed to find a way to spin the situation around so that some of that $545 CAD per person could go towards fighting homelessness. 

Am I saying that every pop-up needs to be a charity event?  No, but they should at least have some sort of purpose. The Experience Economy is alive and well, and, chances are, pop-ups are going to continue to thrive so long as diners are excited by the idea of being able to go to a new restaurant for the first time.  But at some point, exclusivity for the sake of exclusivity took over and people lost sight of what should make a restaurant worth going to: the food.