

Restaurant Only Serves Food From Countries The U.S. Is At War With - torstan
http://www.torontostandard.com/article/restaurant-only-serves-food-from-countries-the-us-is-at-war-with 

======
earbitscom
Well, at least there will be a broad, diverse menu with new food options being
added regularly.

------
tommywilhelm
I was just in Pittsburgh, and this place has closed down. It was around for a
few years though. Cool idea, but perhaps a problematic business model.

------
ValG
"In conflict with" is a broad term. Defined strictly it's "A serious
disagreement or argument, typically a protracted one" and they seem to take
great liberties in how they apply the definition. Venezuela for example; while
the countries may have disagreements on policy, most other forms of relation
are intact (namely trade, which is still humming along
see<http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c3070.html>). Such policy
disagreements are similar to personal disagreements on a macro scale. A clever
PR move though, I'm sure they're getting the attention they wanted!

------
_delirium
Fairly clever. In one direction (food->politics), seems to be leveraging the
fact that "ethnic food" is interesting to many people who aren't otherwise
greatly interested in world affairs, so can provide a hook. Not sure how
effective it'll be at spreading any actual information about anything, but
it's an interesting approach to at least get the initial attention. In the
other direction (politics->food), it's a restaurant concept that seems
somewhat unique in the otherwise fairly saturated market of people who make
food choices based at least in part on politics (e.g. organic/fair-
trade/etc.).

------
pgrote
I know the headline is copied from the article, but I wonder why it differs
from the copy. The headline is incorrect and the copy is correct:

"They only sell food from countries the U.S. is in conflict with."

([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Unite...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States))

~~~
ValG
I would say b/c it attracts more attention. Right or wrong, they seem to be
going the sensationalism route.

------
mc32
Is the US at war with Venezuela, Iran and Cuba? Or, are embargoes and
sanctions considered "war"? AFAIK, we're not at war with Afghanistan either,
rather, we're warring against the Taleban and others but not the Afghan gov't
proper.

"Featured cuisines have included Iranian, Afghan, Cuban and Venezuelan food"

~~~
jkn
Formally speaking, the US hasn't been at war since World War II [1]. The use
of military force by the US government without a declaration of war has
rendered the concept rather meaningless. We are left with the colloquial
acceptation of "war" which certainly includes the conflicts with Vietnam, Iraq
and Afghanistan, but probably not Cuba and Venezuela.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Unite...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States)

~~~
mc32
Official or not, most (and me included) would consider VN, Iraq and
Afghanistan wars. I guess my contention is that currently, the US is not at
war with any particular country, however, it is involved in conflicts in some
and has military presence in others (tho not in active fighting). So I guess
my main point is that calling it war is a stretch but I acknowledge that
they'd go out of business pretty soon, if they just went by general convention
of what "war" is.

Maybe an alternative ideas would be "conflict" food, that would enable them to
serve food from ethiopia, india, tibet, afghanistan, sudan, colombia, mexico,
phiipinnes, etc. and not let their fate rest on the possibility of peace.

------
haberdasher
I'm partial to the Waffle Shop
([http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/creativity/2009/winter/waffle-
sh...](http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/creativity/2009/winter/waffle-shop.shtml)),
but I guess it's mostly because I'm _very_ particular about how my kubideh is
prepared...

------
patrickg
Add Ecuadorian food in half a year.

------
trimbo
Do Mexican drug cartels count?

~~~
mmariani
I don't think so. As they are a small business limiting the scope makes sense.

