For all of you still waiting on answers about ’s sale to OpenAI, you can head over to the Feed Me chat to ask the tech show’s President, Dylan Abruscato, about the deal. Or his time as a Page at NBC. Or how he thinks about viral content.

Yesterday morning, before I had a lunchtime martini with , before I walked out onto Beaver Street, I recorded an episode of . You can listen to it here.

Today’s newsletter includes: ’s investigation into how alt music goes viral, a Feed Me contributor launched his own newsletter, and Jamie Dimon is bullish on media.

Have a story you want me to look into this week? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

Feed Me Job Board

• The New York Times is hiring a fitness reporter. Of course, preferred qualifications include: “Experience with on-camera interviews and generating story ideas for video.”

• The Wainscott house belonging to Josh Aaronson (played by Adrien Brody) on “Succession” just sold for $59 million. It was the second-most expensive transaction in the Hamptons so far this year.

• published an incredible investigation into Chaotic Good, a music marketing agency that creates fake accounts to appear as fans for your favorite alt musicians. The most shocking part to me is that this agency wasn’t operating under the radar – they gave a full interview about their work to Billboard last month, even saying: “Everything on the internet is fake.” Everything on the internet is fake.” I happen to hate this claim, because I remember some of the realest moments of my life took place on  the internet. However, I can’t deny this is no longer the internet I grew up on. Huge swaths of it are blighted by sock puppets, influence campaigns, fake accounts trying to tilt sentiment. A new, turbocharged tyranny of the minority, with the bots on sale to the highest bidder. Thankfully, this hasn’t reached the Feed Me comment section and you’re all 100% real. McLamb, a musician herself, pointed out that Chaotic Good’s founders’ advice for artists echoes what her own management company has told her: “post, post, post, try to hit the algorithm, fail miserably, post, post, post again, try covering other songs, try posting memes, try posting your feet, try posting your songs again, well, no, try posting the feet again.” The idea is to manipulate the public’s perception of an artist through virality and algorithms. The agency’s roster has included Mk.gee., Cameron Winter, Oklou, some of whom have disappeared from their site in the hours since McLamb published this piece. It’s a nice weekend to listen to Eliza’s music.

Read more

I came out of a two-and-a-half hour lunch at Delmonico’s (I think they accidentally extended their Women’s History Month Ladies Lunch special through April) to about 20 texts about my dear friends at — the daily, live tech show sold to OpenAI for an undisclosed amount. I saw one post on X emphasize the fact that John and Jordi are likable guys, which is where I want to reiterate a personal mantra: You cannot compete with people who are having more fun than you.

The Financial Times reported that the deal was in the “low hundreds of millions of dollars,” but you don’t have to lose sleep over that tonight. Dylan Abruscato, President of TBPN, agreed to do a timely Guest Lecture tomorrow.

If this acquisition has left you speechless, you’re not alone.

May I suggest taking the edge off with the new Corporate Thrillers collection on Criterion? Last night, I watched “Disclosure” starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. It features everything you’re thinking about: acquisitions, AI, hot people taking your job, and everyone wearing perfect roomy ‘90s trousers.

Today’s letter includes: The healer in residence at one of New York’s best spas, how WSJ increased their subscriptions by 30%, a hot cross bun guide, and Vice brings back an old and controversial column.

• We need an electrician to advise on why the San Remo building lights on the Upper West Side are two different colors.

• Hot Cross Bun guide:

  • Radio Bakery (Brooklyn)

  • Jolene Bakery (London)

  • Stissing House (Pine Plains)

  • Bakers Bench (Los Angeles)

  • Big Sky Bread (Portland)

Read more

Last night I got drinks with at The Bowery Hotel (margarita for me, martini with olive and twist for her). There was a sweet moment when a young woman from the other side of the bar came over and approached Pia — she’s an avid listener of Pia’s podcast, and was going to one of Pia’s favorite restaurants for dinner with her girlfriends. I stepped outside and clocked countless tables full of women on the Bowery, already half-drunk on a Tuesday thanks to the warm weather.

Afterwards, I went to Zimmi’s for a dinner Ben Smith hosted for Semafor’s brilliant new Head of Communications, Rachel Keidan. For dessert, they served rice pudding with rhubarb. It reminded me that at a recent dinner, a friend told a story about how they got into an almost-physical argument over early spring rhubarb at Eataly last week.

Today’s newsletter includes: A Brooklyn boat regatta for those of you with 3D printers, a new members’ club in Williamsburg, last-minute cancellation wedding etiquette, and is Substack making you addicted to shopping?

Browsing and posting on the Feed Me Job Board is free. This week, roles include , Macy’s, and Ariel Okin Interiors.

Feed Me Job Board

• Jamie Dimon thinks the American dream is dying. At the Hill and Valley Forum last week in Washington, D.C., JPMorgan’s CEO said that America has “become like Europe, we’re unable to move and change.” This week, the bank announced the “American Dream Initiative,” which aims to lend $80 billion over the next ten years to support small businesses, homeownership, access to healthcare, “and other economic priorities that Dimon believes are crucial for the well-being of Americans.”

• From the Feed Me Tip Line: “Bilt is opening their version of the Capital One cafe in the Meatpacking District.” Upon further research, it looks like David Rockwell (The Eighty Six, The View) is playing a role in the design of the financial service cafe.

  

• BoF reported that searches for shopping addiction have nearly doubled since 2020. US credit card debt has risen to $1.28 trillion, which is partially due to the rise in “Buy Now, Pay Later” options on shopping sites. In response, there is a new wave of “no-buy” and “marketing literacy” creators that are trying to educate their audiences on how shopping sites and media are designed and incentivized for them to consume more. I think about this phenomenon a lot while scrolling on Substack. Last month, nailed a feeling I had while watching a specific corner of the internet manically shop for the new Chanel collection—it reminded me of the scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when families were buying chocolate bars en masse and tearing them open. “While it’s undoubtedly an exhilarating moment for an industry that’s felt stagnant, it’s also a bizarre phenomenon to witness Chanel being unboxed in such large quantities (and by so many people) that it might as well be fast fashion… Of course, a plaguing question is: How is everyone affording this much Chanel?” There are chats on Substack dedicated to flagging for readers new items to buy, which is partially a magazine-like service that writers are offering readers, but writers are also incentivized by brands or tech platforms like ShopMy to keep readers on the hamster wheel of shopping.

• I didn’t realize cigarettes ever left.

• As someone who sleeps with the soft hum of someone’s 3D printer running at night, I can tell you that I will probably be at this 3D-printed regatta in Red Hook in May. Pioneer Works is hosting, and remote-controlled, 3D-printed, and DIY boats are all invited to “take on an obstacle course along Red Hook’s picturesque waterfront.”

  @pioneerworks

  

  Pioneer Works on Instagram: "⛵️ Calling all Red Hook Regatta bo…

• I wonder what the Bon Appétit team is cooking up. Earlier this year, June Kim was promoted from Head of Video for Bon Appétit and Epicurious to Executive Editor of both brands. This week, the food magazine posted a job listing for a Newsletter Editor and an Associate Cooking Editor. As new media companies like Caper and Gourmet and Cake Zine launch, and the NYT Cooking team holds steady, it feels like a good time for BA to run some new projects.

• I agree with this person on X that Robert Pattinson has the only correct opinion in this clip. As part of the promotion for A24’s The Drama, A24 created a YouTube show (a lot of work to promote a movie these days, sheesh) where the cast gives advice to anonymous callers. One woman asks if she should drop out of her friend’s bridal party because she doesn’t like her. Most of the cast advises to have a tough love conversation, while Pattinson says to claim she’s sick. I think it’s getting a bit ridiculous to watch people be taught to value confrontation and boundaries so much, like it’s brave. It is insane to tell someone on the week of their wedding that you don’t like them.

• From the Feed Me Tip Line*: “A ‘private club’ is opening in the old Urban Outfitters space on 6th Street in Williamsburg, Gary Vaynerchuk will be one of the owners.” After speaking to David Rodolitz, the CEO of Vaynerchuk’s hospitality group VCR, I learned that VCR will not be owning the club. “As CEO of VCR Group, I can share that we’ve been engaged by a global luxury brand to manage and operate a new members club concept at that location,” Rodolitz told me. “Our role is focused on culinary, hospitality, and overall experience.” VCR opened its first members’ club, Flyfish Club, in 2024 during the peak of the New York City members’ club boom. Flyfish Club’s membership costs are about $3,500/year, and if this club follows the same pricing, you can expect to see a surge in Colgate grads and entry-level J.P. Morgan employees. It will also probably be the perfect place for happy hours hosted by AI tax companies, that they will professionally photograph the event and then post on LinkedIn to prove to their VCs that they are “building community.”

  

*This item has been updated on 4/1 at 4:23pm ET with a quote from the VCR team.

Yesterday afternoon, I walked up sunny Madison Avenue to the Breuer. I walked through group after group of high school kids in oversized sweatshirts and eyeliner, eating deli sandwiches and flirting with boys. I was sanitized of the airborne hormones once I stepped into the Sotheby’s Breuer building, where I toured the soon-to-open Marcel. I can’t show you much yet, but I can tell you that every square inch of the restaurant is magnificent, including the dolly.

Today’s newsletter includes: Jack Harlow’s New York movie club, I’d rather buy a Blue Zone private island than the business of Allbirds, a longtime Substack employee leaves to start his own agency (for…Substack creators), and a magazine changes their title for a special edition issue.

“I’m noticing this platform has become a really good way for women to monetize their diary entries — lists, random thoughts, and (easy to write) roundups of ‘what I’ve been doing’ do really well on this site.” - Me, 2024

• American Exchange Group bought Allbirds for $39 million. The sneaker brand was once valued at $4 billion. On Running, which launched a few years before Allbirds, was recently valued at CHF 3 billion, or over $3.7 billion. Here are a few other things you can buy for $39 million besides a failing tech bro shoe brand:

  • A house in Aspen and an estate with a vineyard in Bridgehampton.

  • A Yayoi Kusama pumpkin.

  • A 110-spot parking garage on Park Avenue.

  • An island in Greece, located within a known Blue Zone, which means you can finally find health, happiness, and longevity.

Read more

There are two sure signs of spring: the tiny purple and yellow crocuses that burst out of the cold, hard dirt in Prospect Park, and the bright green peas that end up on every dish in New York.

Last night, my friend made a fantastic Sunday roast (that she veiled in prosciutto and edible flowers). She also served a magenta and green salad covered with tiny peas. On Saturday evening, I ate at Jupiter, where outside, skaters took advantage of the last few days of the 30 Rockefeller Center rink still being open. The Jupiter team was hosting a special dinner with their sister restaurant, King. One of the courses was porchetta, sprinkled with, yes, tiny green peas. And on Friday, I got dinner with my friends at Theodora where we ordered a roast chicken that also came with peas. So you can look at the weather app, or listen to Punxsutawney Phil, or look at what’s happening on the legs of Gen Z women drinking at Bar Oliver to decipher what season it is. Or you can just look for the peas on the menu.

Today’s newsletter includes: A $300k editing job at a magazine nobody has ever heard of, the most important priest in New York City, and a question for the copywriters working at Compass comparing a Nolita apartment to Lake Como.

For a special edition of Guest Lecture today, I interviewed Sourmilk’s on Substack Live. We discussed everything from “building in public” to packaging design.

Ten nice London hotel recommendations.

A few weeks ago, I asked you all for recs for London hotels — I’m spending a week there next month. What came back was a set of organized, varied suggestions. These weren’t tips from travel editors or influencers who were comped a stay at a new property, but rather my in-the-know readers sharing the go-to’s they would give to their friends. The list of ten is good, printed and attributed mostly in full here. I think I’m gonna start doing this more, so we can build out a nice resource for everyone.

“The Rosewood! Perfect hybrid of old school British charm and modern comfort. Gorgeous lobby, kind staff and they have a restaurant devoted to pot pie, so… (Second runner up: my house. Staffed by cats. Only have yogurt in fridge. But great color story.)” -

“Ham Yard. A Firmdale Hotel (Whitby, Crosby Street). In its own courtyard. Bowling alley and great gym. In the West End. Almost everything a short or reasonable walk.” -

“The Marylebone. Fantastic location, access to on-site health club (I didn’t have time to test it out while I was there, but I will next time!), great hotel restaurant, and the interiors feel modern without veering too clinical.” -

“When we felt spendy, it was the Chiltern Firehouse, RIP. [Emily note: The Chiltern suffered a major fire in February 2025 and is due to open again in spring 2027] I like The Laslett for its location next to Notting Hill, proximity to the tube, and price. My favorite is Durrant’s. It is family owned and therefore inherently British in the best way, petite in scale, thoughtful in its service, excellent location in Marylebone (my fave hood) and right next to the world class Wallace Collection. Always well-priced. As much as the word “chic” is overused, I think Durrant’s is actually chic. It is understated and lovely.” -

Read more

is the co-founder of Sourmilk, a Greek yogurt brand focused on gut health. Couchman started Sourmilk with her friend Elan Halpern. The two met at Stanford, went on to work in tech and finance, and quit their jobs last year to go all in on dairy. Kiki has become the public face of Sourmilk on social media, and in this conversation we discuss everything from “building in public” to packaging design.

Topics discussed include:

Building in public as leverage: “When you’re small, you need to find as many ways as possible to create leverage for yourself as a brand because otherwise everyone else will exploit you essentially because you’re trying to knock and get in the door.”

On bootstrapping and not taking outside capital early: “We wanted to avoid that for as long as possible. No paid media, no Meta ads, nothing. Some people are like, I see your ads all the time. I’m like, girl, that’s organic.”

On choosing yogurt over tech: “Everyone else we know is in AI and in a very different area, but it’s not rocket science. It’s very hard. You have to be super gritty, but ultimately you just need to make a product, have an efficient supply chain and sell it for more than you make it.”

Every day, I am getting closer to understanding what Air is, but I’m still not there. Last night, I was in Air’s Howard Street office to celebrate the phenomenal Macy Gilliam. It was the one-year anniversary of her show with Morning Brew, Out There.

Today’s letter includes: A play about the death of downtown New York, lip filler is giving you an accent, a new menswear newsletter by Magasin alum , and Vice is attempting to rebuild their empire.

• Louis Cheslaw, a London-based GQ editor and the founding menswear columnist for Magasin, is leaving to start his own newsletter called Wardrobe. I met in 2020, he moved to the apartment below mine and we ended up spending many nights together on his floor or mine, drinking tea and talking about work and life. I adore his writing, and I’m so happy for him to launch this project. His first newsletter spells out plainly what Wardrobe’s goal is: “I want us to all build wardrobes that make us happy, last a long time, and help us feel more like ourselves.”

• Why do influencers talk like that? Lip filler. Alex Sujong Laughlin wrote about a phenomenon she’s calling “Lip Filler Accent” – a specific way of speaking that comes from having had lip filler – for The Defector. The story started with a familiar situation: sitting on the train and observing New York City teenagers. The catch about LFA is that people who haven’t even touched their lips with injections are adopting the speech style.

• The Face magazine is shuttering. Sad news. I really fell in love with their work, especially the investment in young photographers. Shaad wrote a great post about why The Face was the coolest magazine in the world.

@shaad

shaad magazine on Instagram: "but at least this means shaad mag…

Read more

Today’s letter is being finished up and sent from the lobby bar at Hotel Chelsea. I have two small pieces of spring advice I’d like to share for everyone. One is, if invited to dinner, to bring a bouquet of tulips to your host’s house. The other is to embrace Easter decorations. Everyone gets so jazzed up over Christmas decorations, but I like a painted egg on my bookshelf. My friend gifted me a trio of hand-painted eggs from Munich last year, and I’m thinking of making a few for a friend who is hosting me on Sunday.

Today’s letter includes: The first major hire at Air Mail post-Puck acquisition, on Stars, a fashion newsletter collaborates with Vogue, and the reason your newsroom might be hungover today.

Have a story you want me to look into this week? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

All the stars for Stars. By .

Expense Account is a series on Feed Me by semi-anonymous restaurant critic J Lee. He hosts a podcast with the same name. Today, he wrote about a recent visit to Stars, a new wine bar in the East Village from the same team behind Claud and Penny.

Over the last few years, New York has become a city of wine bars. It feels like a new one opens every week. I’m not complaining, I like to drink wine, but it’s been hard to keep up. It’s rare that one truly stands out (shoutout Lei), even rarer that I feel the urge to write about one. Stars is a little wine bar on East 12th Street, by the team behind perennial favorites Claud and Penny. Stars opened in mid-December, but I’m glad I waited a few months to try it out. I visited on the first day of spring. One of those days where everything feels sparkly, the air smells sweet, and the world is beautiful, you’re bulletproof. It was the first day that Stars had gotten to open up their facade out onto the street, and at 5:30 p.m., there was a perpetual golden-hour feeling in the space. Their zinc bar is quite handsome all on its own, but with that light, and the hand of god, it was one of the most beautiful rooms I’ve ever seen, maybe. That’s to say that I arrived to Stars wearing rose-tinted glasses and found a rose-tinted room. A room that shines. Like a diamond. Or like a STAR.

Stars is small. It’s the perfect size. There are 12 seats oriented around a U-shaped bar, and space with ledges for ten people to stand and drink and wait for a seat. There’s something about the lighting at Stars where it feels like that sunset hour or that moment just after a sunset perpetually. There’s a distinct post-McNallyian luminous glow, a light temperature that feels like it was created inside of a Fujifilm X100VI. The sound design in the space really drives home that you’re in a self-contained ecosystem, your own little planet, or on a boat adrift. You have nowhere else to be, nowhere else you want to be. I imagine this place must get mobbed. On my visit, there was a small wait, but it felt manageable. An amount of anticipation and rubbing shoulders is half the fun. It’s a beautiful bar full of beautiful people where you can have a beautiful glass of wine and even some beautiful food.

The wine list at Stars is well-curated. Lengthy but not overwhelming. When I visited there were 16 wines by the glass, plus 3 special pours, 6 n/a options, 2 sakes, 3 sherries, 2 dessert wines, 3 beers (with an option to make it a Spaghett), 3 options for drinks on the rocks, plus something called a Tuxedo No. 2 (a sake/shochu-based cocktail infused with cherries, it’s delicious). Quite the list for such a little bar. Claude and Penny are famous for their deep bottle lists (I’ve heard stories of crazy grey market private collection wines that are absolutely impossible to get anywhere else), and Stars upholds the family tradition. The list is deep, but for someone who knows a bit about wine, it’s clean, well-organized, diverse, yet concise. And if you don’t know much about wine, their staff is great, they know how to help. Don’t be scared to go off the beaten path, get some oxidative wine with your cheese, they’ll never lead you astray. Of course it’s gauche to talk about price, but Stars makes a real effort to price everything fairly, and to make sure there are great bottles at every price point. I can’t remember the last time I saw a bottle under $50 on a serious list, but Stars has got it. They’ve also got a $4,200 bottle of vintage champagne by Jacques Selosse, if you’re in the mood to drink a wine from 1988. I described to the server exactly what I like and what I’d like to drink, and they brought a bottle of Vouvray by Michel Autran, which was just the perfect wine to drink on the first day of spring. They nailed it. Bright minerality grounded by an undercurrent of reduction, my favorite kind of wine really. Don’t be shy, give it a big swirl, and breathe it in. Imagine drinking lemonade on your front porch; grass is cut and a little damp, and you get a quick whiff of smoke from your neighbors fire pit. It tastes like summer’s right around the corner.

Read more

Today’s letter includes: an exclusive on a new bar in a Hamptons train station, my thoughts on Alix Earle’s new skincare line, shooting movies on iPhones, and an opening date for the new Beverly Hills Aman.

The Feed Me Substack Chat is discussing the best rooms in New York City.

Dispatch from the Polymarket bar from a reader:

Last weekend, Polymarket hosted a pop-up bar called the Polymarket Situation Room on K Street in Washington, D.C. It was billed as a sort of sports bar but for “monitoring the situation” and placing live bets on…anything the prediction market platform might have established a market for. I was pretty curious about whether this would be an interesting IRL version of the extremely popular platform, but was in California during its big weekend in DC. Thankfully, Margaux Bauerlein, a D.C. journalist and Feed Me reader, wrote in with an on-the-ground dispatch. There was plenty that was observable, as well as plenty that was chatter in the air. Take the latter for what it is: stuff people were speculating about.—Emily

**

After spending three nights at the Polymarket Situation Room pop-up in Washington, D.C., I’ve come to the conclusion that aspiring insider traders are worse than actual ones.

Lack of internet connectivity on Friday, the first night, deprived the sports bar for the clinically online of the promised live Bloomberg terminals, X feeds, and cable news chyrons. Joshua Tucker, head of growth at Polymarket and former head of viral marketing for MrBeast, offered free fruit kabobs and room-temperature red wine in apology.

I thought Tucker and his troupe of millennial male creatives wearing sunglasses indoors were trying to create a sexy Washington, D.C. dark room where state secrets could be swapped over glasses of brown liquor. Instead, they created a haven for men with the outline of Zyn containers stamped onto the back pocket of their Target-brand jeans. Also in attendance, according to people I spoke with: DOGE staffers and convicted and pardoned January 6 rioter Bryan Betancur.

At one point, two young “creative directors” took responsibility for an orb that spun around a projection of the world map and displayed live Polymarket bets. “Russa x Ukraine ceasefire by end of April?” flashed in the background of a father-daughter selfie. This event would’ve been different if it had been in New York, they lamented.

—Margaux Bauerlein

• is raising his hand to answer the question: Who’s going to make The Cut for men?

• Madeline Montoya, Founding Creative Director of Byline, is the new Creative Director of Billboard. Madeline is such a star — the visual language of Byline both in print and digitally was such a breath of fresh air in media. She’s also worked at The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Teen Vogue. Keeping an extra eye on Billboard in 2026….

• If you’re in Los Angeles, you should take advantage of the local pickup option for Gwyneth Paltrow’s home auction. Louis Poulsen lamps, Eames chairs, and Gwyneth Kate Paltrow-monogrammed Pewter. Thank you Substack Chat for tipping this off to me.

Read more

Consider this your timely spring reminder to read ’s story about visiting the butter lamb HQ in Buffalo, New York. 🐑

Today’s letter includes: An answer to the question: Where does go from here?, a new Hamptons diner that wants to partner with creators and have a tasting menu, more reality TV from Barstool, and promising Lower East Side ice cream news.

Have a story you want me to look into this week? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

Read more

After spending the last week in Austin, Los Angeles, La Jolla, Palm Springs, and about 45 minutes in Kansas City last night to refuel during a diverted flight, I woke up this morning at home in Brooklyn.

Today’s newsletter includes: The social media jobs that are asking employees to become talent, eBay’s vintage magazine dealers are having a great Q1, the growing appetite for business-content-created-by-hot-people, and it must be fun to work in the New York Review of Books ad department.

Have a story you want me to look into this week? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

Guest Lecture is a Feed Me series where I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Mark Guiducci, Delia Cai, and Alison Roman.

For our next Guest Lecture, we’ll be talking to Kiki Couchman, who left her full-time job in finance to cofound ⁠yogurt brand Sourmilk⁠.

Feed Me Job Board

• Expense Account is on a brief hiatus, but when Tom Colicchio called, had to pick up. We’ll be back this spring with some exciting updates.

• Closing: The Upper East Side’s Mezzaluna.

• Opening: L’industrie, Little Italy.

• Meal replacement brand (yum) Huel has been acquired by Danone in a $1.2 billion deal. Can’t say I’ve ever laid a hand on a bottle of Huel, partially because of the name but mostly because I don’t consume my meals in the form of powder/bottled drink/bar, but if you do reach for these in your bodega, I’m curious about the reasoning. I was reading Drew Fallon’s posts on X this morning about the deal, where he wrote that the supplement category seems to be picking up. “Consumer trends are REALLY shifting more than I think anyone realizes towards these supplement businesses.”

• Ramp and finance media company Litquidity have partnered on a padel club that will play in Miami and New York.

Read more

This week, J Lee spoke to Tom Colicchio. The restaurateur and TV star just celebrated the 25th anniversary of his iconic restaurant Craft. You might also know him as a judge on all 21 seasons of “Top Chef,” and as a co-founder of Gramercy Tavern. This episode covers:

• What it was like to shop at Union Square Farmer’s Market in the ‘90s

• How the cost of opening a restaurant in New York City has changed over the last three decades

• Training in restaurants vs. training in culinary school

• How Tom almost ended up in “The Sopranos”

Expense Account is a food podcast for everyone. Insiders, outsiders, your mom, your dad, New Yorkers, Angelenos and also people from Florida (we love you). Anyone who enjoys eating food. It’s even for people who hate food. Feed Me’s resident food critic, J Lee will be joined each week by interesting and noteworthy guests from various fields who will make you laugh, they might even make you cry, who knows. You’ll find us here each week. Subscribe to stay relevant.

This one is for my paid readers. See you on the other side of the paywall.

Read more

Writing to you again today from sunny California. Reminder to anyone with a @yahoo.com email address that today is your last day to redeem an annual subscription discount.

Today’s letter includes: The Jean’s team bought a restaurant in the Hamptons, a Dimes Square restaurant is cracking down on holding court, a question for the partnerships team at Hotel Chelsea, and you should snag a $5 ticket to Graydon Carter’s talk tonight.

Chicken noodle soup with Ruthie Rogers.

On a rainy afternoon last week, I ate chicken soup out of a porcelain bowl at Dowling’s at the Carlyle with Ruthie Rogers. It’s exciting to be in a restaurant for the first time in New York City. To our left was a couple having a lunchtime dessert, being assembled under a flame on a flambé cart. Behind us, a woman who couldn’t have been younger than 80, reading a printed copy of the New York Post in a fur coat. As Ruthie, the owner of London’s iconic River Cafe, tore pieces of baguette and dropped them into her soup, I followed.

We were there to talk about Table 4 at The River Cafe, Ruthie’s new book that came out this week. I had received a copy in the mail the week before, and opened it while putting on my coat to leave my office. I ended up sitting down at my desk in my coat, and staying in my office an extra thirty minutes to flip through the pages. It’s not a cookbook (though she did make one of those with Ed Ruscha), but instead a compilation of transcripts from her podcast, Ruthie’s Table 4. In fact, some Americans have gotten to know Ruthie not through the hot pink pizza oven at her legendary blue-carpeted restaurant, The River Cafe, but through the podcast she started during COVID. (Earlier that day, someone in Blank Street Coffee recognized her from the podcast.)

Read more

Good afternoon, everyone.

I have a California-sized West Coast edition of Feed Me for you today that I just finished up editing while eating a cinnamon bun from Wayfarer Bakery in La Jolla. I will have to take care of the sugar granules in my keyboard.

Today’s letter includes: An interview with the newly-launched L.A. Material, reports from Expo West parties, is going for an Emmy, and a rumored addition to The Sunset Tower’s all-day menu.

Beef tallow, EBITDA, and the dream of a $500 million exit at Expo West.

Political Parties is a party column by Cami Fateh. It offers readers a glimpse into the unspoken cultural trends of party culture, in rooms that they didn’t even know existed.

Every spring, more than sixty thousand people descend on Anaheim, California, for Natural Products Expo West, the largest natural products trade show in the world. “Expo West” or just “Expo,” is a festival for anyone who works in or around food, snacks, vitamins, supplements, even beauty, and for those who invest in these industries or consult for them.

At Expo, you might meet partners at McKinsey, the lead R&D Chef at Sweetgreen, someone who has the real job title of “Brand Forager” at Erewhon, the co-founders of soda brand Poppi, a buyer for Happier Grocery, or one of five Assistant Vitamin Managers at Sprouts Farmers Market. And there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of founders of CPG brands, ranging from the founder of a Korean tampon product with sub-600 Instagram followers to the CEO of the viral cottage cheese brand Good Culture (which just landed a $500 million acquisition), who I met hanging outside the expo floor. Some attendees describe it as “the Coachella of the food industry,” but with all the fandom going on, at times it felt more Comic-Con.

On the first day, I stepped into the Anaheim Convention Center with a goal of walking by all 3,000+ booths, which are carnival-like installations that lure in visitors with testers and freebies. I ate grain-free pizza pockets at the Caulipower booth, hit the “Protein Drop Challenge” at one of the three Chomps beef stick booths, and stopped off at the Oatly conveyor belt to sip on their new launch: popcorn-flavored oat milk.

I snacked dutifully, accepting samples of nootropic chocolate, jalapeño beef sticks, low-glycemic sour candies, teriyaki ice cream, a product called “Proda” (you guessed it: protein soda), four different varieties of candy dates, and a date-sweetened soda. I walked the expo floor until my feet hurt – 16,000 steps without setting foot outdoors feels wrong – until 6 p.m. hit, which meant it was time to party.

I walked into my first after-hours party (a 700-person event hosted by Snaxshot) with my new friend Olivia, the founder of a months-old red wine spritzer brand. We had just met while waiting in line outside, when she offered me a can of her product, Maison Maxine, as another guy was showing off an unidentifiable sauce bottle. “Oh my god, I know that one from Erewhon!!” one girl exclaimed. Another guy was introduced to me as Kim Kardashian’s co-founder, which made sense when I saw the can of energy drink Update in his hand. He explained that he’d been building the company for three years before Kim came to the rescue, and he was at Expo debuting their relaunch.

We were ushered into a single-file line like pledges entering a frat party, and were each handed a goodie bag and an empty tote (which I later learned is for trick-or-treating the samples), and pulled into a strobe-lit room filled with blaring techno music. A heavy-handed bartender greeted us with shots of vodka mixed with one brand’s tomato sauce and another brand’s hot sauce.

Cue: Willy Wonka’s ‘Pure Imagination’.

Drinks and snacks snaked up three floors of the Airbnb, including creatine cocktails (Arrival), coconut sugar in dime bags (glonuts), and a pistachio butter fountain from Pistakio. Everywhere the eye could see was a grinning stranger handing you a new snack or drink - DOU chili oil on popcorn with chopsticks, a Ya’Albi olive oil dirty martini, Sobo dumplings off a sputtering skillet. There were shirtless men in bow ties. I watched three women compete over which of their products had more protein (35 grams vs. 10 grams vs. 5 grams) and a grocery store owner typing his number into a sauce founder’s phone.

I felt like a college kid on the first day of Spring Break, but instead of warm beer, I was drinking a Cowboy Colostrum cocktail. And for many people, this trip was a business expense! Brands and buyers were closing deals.

Let’s zoom out for a second: Why is the Sprouts buyer treated like a celebrity by these founders? It’s because wholesale – not DTC – is the most viable sales channel for these young CPG businesses. About a decade ago, there was a moment when you could launch a really good CPG company with DTC and Facebook ads as your main channel. That moment is over, primarily because customer acquisition costs are higher online, but we can save the iOS 14.5 conversation for next time we see each other at a party. So the right grocery store buyer is a kingmaker to these young brands. That first million dollar purchase order can change the future of your business.

Back to the party.

Andrea Hernandez, who writes the CPG newsletter Snaxshot, hosts her “anti-expo” party every year. It’s a chance for the “newest of the new” startups (some of which haven’t even launched or hit retailers, or are debuting at the party itself) to meet the same vendors, influencers, VCs, and restaurateurs that they would at Expo. Crucially, there’s very little overhead to showing up at parties and handing out samples – whereas booths at Expo run anywhere from around $5,000 to $140,000, and can exceed up to 20% of a company’s annual revenue.

Parties like Andrea’s are where the young, cool, and hungry people are: like my new friend Olivia, or Nikita Mansouri, the founder of La Saum, a 4-month-old olive brine brand, who chose not to pay for Expo, but was behind the bar serving up dirty martinis herself, or Jack Davis and Jacob Tubis, the founders of Byte’m Brownie Bites, who committed themselves to attending over 300 CPG-community events in the past year. According to Tubis, they’ve met the bulk of their industry contacts through Andrea herself or at parties like this one, including their Amazon agency and their bank, Rho.

I woke up on the second day of Expo feeling both stuffed and starving, and awash with a hangover. My Uber driver asked me if I was going to Disneyland, to which I responded, “No, but close enough.”

I was thrilled by the flavors of my first snack of the day – a plate of sizzling beef tallow fries – until I learned that it was the tallow appetizer before a tallow smorgasbord that would overwhelm even RFK Jr. I proceeded to count tallow-fried tortilla chips, two tallow-fried potato chip brands, beef tallow tater tots, tallow protein bars, tallow lip-balm, and 14-ounce jars of straight-up Wagyu beef tallow.

No trend on the floor - not even the many varieties of tallow-fried chips, tots, bars, and lip-balm - could eclipse the word “protein,” which hung in the very air of the halls on glowing neon signs, in multiple beef-stick startups, debut products from trad-brands, like Nature Valley, which debuted “Protein Plus Milk,” as well as from millennial CPG brands, like Banza.

According to Good Culture’s co-founder and CEO, Jesse Merrill, the protein trend isn’t going anywhere. He was fresh out of leading a panel called “After the Hype: How Real Trends Mature - Lessons from Protein” when I caught him lingering on the quad (college campus vibes) with a guy whose shirt read “EBITDA.” Surprisingly, he believes that manufactured protein foods will be on their way out as consumers develop discernment for foods should actually contain protein (hint: probably not clear sparkling drinks). He compares the hype around synthetic protein to the engineered plant-based meat fad, which burned out fast. Remember Beyond Meat? They’re now dropping the “Meat” from their name and, ironically, expanding into protein beverages and bars.

I asked the “EBITDA” guy about his outfit inspo, to which he responded: “If you’re asking, we already have a problem. It’s something that a lot more brands here should be thinking about.”

Later, at “America’s Next Top Snack,” a Shark-Tank-inspired event hosted by Air at Bubba Gump Shrimp (this sounds like a mad lib), I met a grocery-store owner who compared $17 tallow chips to “overpriced pork juice,” and a fractional CFO for CPG brands who predicted that the tallow “microtrend” will burn out quickly – possibly wishful thinking, as she herself doesn’t eat meat. On the floor at Bubba Gump, I listened to chatter about fiber “replacing” protein (albeit, from two guys who “work in fermentation”) and about the “return of gluten” – a preposition closely tied to the hype around “ancient grains” – surrounding Ollin, a cake mix startup that proudly contains both ancient grains and gluten.

From where I stood, the crowd wasn’t concerned about dietary restrictions in the slightest. Out of all the early-stage startups presenting at Expo, the names that garnered the most hype were dairy products: Smearcase, a high-protein cottage cheese ice cream, won first place in the Albertsons Innovation Launchpad competition – a prize that most of the early-stage founders I met were vying for. Other hot names being passed around the early-stage crowd included Cotto (cottage cheese), Chara (fro-yo), Sour Milk (yogurt), and Bezi (labneh). The Bezi team ultimately took home America’s Next Top Snack.

I dipped into the Carbone pizza party, only to discover that it was literally just people eating pizza, and made a quick turnaround for my final stop of the night – a corporate hotel to meet a family friend, a manager at Unilever, at the Morgan Stanley/McKinsey Margarita Mixer (another mad lib), in the hopes of meeting someone interesting. Two partners at McKinsey looked at me blankly when I name-dropped “America’s Next Top Snack,” admitting that they attend the conference yearly yet never interact with early-stage brands. Their itinerary looks more big-dairy than small-cottage-cheese-ice-cream, they didn’t even know there were parties involved, and they told me, earnestly, that they’re jealous of me for getting to hang with early-stage founders.

While waiting at the gate for the LAX-EWR flight, I tried to synthesize my takeaways from Expo, and found it difficult to separate the different stories I’d heard all week: protein mania, the fiber takeover that everyone seemed to be talking about, and the cottage-industry of Partifuls that get food startups off the ground. Some trends I am sure people will be betting on: dates, fermented products (even olive brine developed just for dirty martinis!), and, unfortunately, tallow.

I walked past a guy eating Partake cookies, two guys in Carbone hoodies, and a woman carrying a bag that read “the CPG retail Logistics Experts,” and then struck up conversation with another woman who was waiting to board my flight. Turned out she worked at a gluten-free product subscription service. She stressed, emphatically, how it felt like “everyone is fiber-maxxing” this year.

It struck me that the early-stage founders, ignored by McKinsey, were here chasing the same dream - that rare $500 million exit achieved by Good Culture. Jesse did it, and so can I. Each buyer might be the one to slip a tiny disposable bamboo sample spoon between their lips, get floored by flavor, and cut a check for that million dollar purchase order. And if not them, then the next buyer, the next booth, or the next bountiful Expo, next year.

This concludes Political Parties, a column by .

As summer rapidly approaches, and we continue to discuss the job market in various Feed Me forums, I decided it would be a good day to roundup some West Coast summer internship and job opportunities for my younger readers (or their parents). Reminder that college students get free Feed Me subscriptions with a university email address by filling out this form.

Creative Strategy and Copy Intern, Rare Beauty: You’ll assist the Director of Creative Strategy with identifying industry trends and opportunities that will help shape global campaign messaging and product copy. ($22/hour, Los Angeles)

Food Reporter Intern, The SF Standard: You’ll write and report news and feature stories about food, dining, and drinking trends from San Francisco and the Bay Area for readers here and around the globe. ($25/hour, San Francisco)

Part-Time Barista, Madhappy: You’ll prepare coffee, tea, and specialty beverages with precision and consistency, prioritizing quality to deliver an exceptional customer experience in Madhappy’s new Malibu flagship store. ($17.27/hour plus tips, Malibu)

Software Engineer Systems Research Intern at OpenAI: A systems research internship is for people who love the real-world intersection of systems-engineering and research: You’ll investigate a hard systems problem, build something meaningful, and measure it carefully. ($67/hour, San Francisco)

Executive Assistant to Founder Family Office: Seeking a low-ego, highly intuitive, tech-savvy Senior Executive Assistant to support a dynamic CEO/Founder. This is a business-focused role requiring strong judgment, anticipation, and the ability to pivot quickly. ( $175,000–$210,000/ year, Woodside, CA)

Brand Partnerships Intern at The h.wood Group (Delilah, The Nice Guy): You’ll assist the Brand Partnerships Director who manages and develops brand partnerships for The h. wood Group. You will be expected to learn the ins-and-outs of the department while gaining valuable insight to further your interest in your chosen career field. ($20/hour, West Hollywood)

Posting and browsing on the Feed Me Job Board is free.

Roles this week include Sales at Instacart, Head of Content at a new music venue in The Meatpacking District, and Social Media at Sandberg Goldberg Bernthal Family Foundation.

Catching up with L.A. Material.

Last week, a new Los Angeles-based media company called L.A. Material launched with the aim to “make Los Angeles legible.” The founding team brings together experience from the Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, Crooked Media, and the writer’s room of Eastbound & Down. Of course, they’ll have a daily newsletter. But they’re also launching podcasts, events, and something I thought was fun: discounts to local businesses.

Today, I interviewed Matt Hamilton, Senior Reporter for L.A. Material (who spent 11 years at The L.A. Times prior) about what we can expect from the publication, how they chose to build on beehiiv, and why they chose to bring on two people with strong comedy backgrounds.

Emily Sundberg: This a big team for a newsletter startup. How is it funded? Are all of these people salaried?

Matt Hamilton: Well, we are more than a newsletter startup – we are a growing local newsroom, and the daily newsletter is one great entry point and product. As to our funding: There’s no predominant investor but more than a dozen private individuals, family offices, friends, and family. The common thread is they (1) love L.A. and (2) want to see a news organization that builds community with a dash of mischief, verve, and intelligence. And it is worth noting, investors have no editorial control.

As to staffing: We have some people on staff but we also work with freelancers and consultants, and the goal is to keep the team nimble and adaptable as the business grows.

ES: Why did you choose beehiiv as your email service? How will this affect your distribution and audience acquisition strategy?

MH: We’ve been really grateful to partner with Beehiiv’s Media Collective, which has tools and resources for small newsrooms like ours and offers crucial operational support. As we’ve jammed toward launch this week, Beehiiv has been a solid and flexible partner.

ES: Who are peers across the media industry that you respect / have learned from?

MH: Our team’s inspo, in no particular order: The Cut and the wider NY Mag universe. Puck. The Baltimore Banner. The Manchester Mill. Voice of San Diego. ProPublica. 404 Media. Page Six Hollywood newsletter. Feed Me (natch). Alt weeklies in their heyday, like The Village Voice, L.A Weekly.

ES: How will you cover L.A. which in many ways is a REGION not just a city?

MH: You are right – Los Angeles County is a region with 10 million people in 88 (!) cities – so we have to be selective, rigorous, and relentless, all at once.

L.A. Material, which launches tomorrow, will have a daily newsletter, a weekly podcast, and about two longer-form articles, or scoops, per week, plus events. In all formats, we think about: How can we bring an insider perspective or expert context and make that accessible? What will people want to talk about over dinner or text their friends? What reveals something about who wields power or influence here and how they do so?

We also have a member-only forum on Discord, where members discuss local news and share celebrity sightings, restaurant reviews, and a growing catalog of the best vanity plates around town.

ES: Are you hiring/are you taking pitches?

MH: Yes, there is a pitch guide for freelancers and contributors! Send queries to pitches@lamaterial.com.

ES: For you, Matt, why did you decide to work at L.A. Material?

MH: I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to help build a local news organization from the ground up with the co-founders who I’ve long admired. I’ve worked in large, legacy media my whole career, including 11 years at the L.A. Times, where I was an investigative reporter. I was itching for a change, especially after the last few years of buyouts and layoffs. At L.A. Material, I will keep doing the reporting I love – both longer and quick-turn investigations – while also helping to start something small and sustainable, that punches up and relies on an organic connection to our readers and subscribers.

ES: Bonus: I noticed that Hayes Davenport (Creative Director and Co-Founder) and Pablo Goldstein (Creative Producer) have backgrounds in comedy. What if anything does that bring to the publication?

MH: Comedy is all about a relationship to the audience – listening, building trust, entertaining, and challenging the audience. That’s at the core of what we are doing, making Hayes, one of our co-founders, and Pablo, our creative producer, crucial to the enterprise. I think those comedy chops also speak to the culture of what our co-founders are trying to build, both as a workplace and as a product: curious, open-minded, and serious, but with a necessary dose of levity.

Have a story you want me to look into this week? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

• Leon Black sold his Beverly Hills mansion (which he bought from Tom Cruise in 2016) for $47 million. A spokesperson told The Real Deal that his two adult children were living there while working in Los Angeles, “but both have returned to New York and so the house was no longer of need.”

• On Sunday night while staying at The Sunset Tower, I might’ve successfully convinced Jeff Klein to add an all-day BLT to the hotel’s room service menu. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. 🥪

• We’re getting our first review of Noma Los Angeles tomorrow. Tom Sietsema, a former Washington Post food critic, is launching his new newsletter (built on beehiiv) on Thursday. Per Axios, “In addition to the newsletter, which will publish around three times per month, Sietsema will offer premium subscribers the chance to meet in person over meals.”

• If I were in SF tomorrow night, I’d go to this event that Bay Area Current is hosting. This Machine Kills podcast and Bay Area Current reporters are attempting to decode the tech right-wing vibe shift and its effects on the Bay Area. There will be drinks provided, and you’re going to need them.

• OpenAI now has over 1 million sq. ft. of office space in the Bay Area.

• From the Feed Me Tip Line: Lucky’s in Montecito threw a party for their 25th anniversary last week. Attendees included Kevin Costner, Christopher Lloyd, and Michael J. Fox, who linked with Carol Burnett at her special table. “Larry David initially denying a photographer before returning a half hour later, asking for a solo shot- classic. Heidi Montag pulled guests into the wine cellar, playing her unreleased album front to back (20 songs. Long. Kim Petras-y). Montag’s husband, Spencer Pratt, snapped photos of her all night (pictured) and loudly chatted about his ambitions to run for mayor of Los Angeles before they left for Chinese food.” While we’re on the topic: How is the Lucky’s in New York City doing?

• The RealReal reopened their SF store, three years after closing. There is a coffee shop inside.

• And Chanel is planning on moving into the Union Square building they bought in SF soon. There hasn’t been an official opening date, but the company appears to be hiring for boutique roles.

• Mumford & Sons’ Ben Lovett is opening a new music venue called Pacific Electric in Los Angeles this weekend. The 750-person venue is nestled between Chinatown and Mission Junction and its first show will be from L.A. rock band Dawes. I’m excited about the secret Indian food window by BADMAASH and the Long Island Iced Teas. This project comes a month after Kristen Stewart revealed she’d bought a movie theater in Highland Park and five years after Quentin Tarantino bought Los Feliz’s Vista Theatre. Earlier this year, Peter Kafka spoke to Janice Min about the “Detroit vibe” that Hollywood is facing. I respect the local artists who are choosing to reinvest in the city’s cultural institutions.

• TBPN has launched a full-blown campaign to win an Emmy. “We’re a niche emerging media company buying FYC billboards across L.A.,” Jordi Hays, co-host of TBPN told me this morning. “If we don’t win, we’re f*cked.”

• Urbanlime, an L.A.-based real estate and development firm, is positioning the soon-to-open Aire Ancient Baths as a reason to invest in DTLA. A deck for the 120,000 sq. ft. campus in LA’s art district focuses on the massive bathhouse (set to open later this year), which already has secured a lease with the building. You have to inquire about the price, but there’s an opportunity here to build a mega-wellness campus.

• From the Feed Me Tip Line: “Over 150 private flights have been chartered for VIPs attending Hadrian’s big announcement on Friday. The L.A.-based company founded by Chris Power is an AI-powered manufacturer focused on aerospace and defense. It’s backed by A16Z, Founders Fund, Lux Capital and 1789 and most recently valued at $1.6B.” The event is in Alabama, so my 254 AL subscribers should keep an eye out for a brash Australian aerospace founder.

I’m writing this from San Diego, before I head to my next California destination tomorrow. If you have any West Coast tips you’d like me to include in my next California edition of Feed Me, please email emily@readfeedme.com.

I started Ben Lerner’s Transcription yesterday, and will write a review of it next week. I’ll be in London for a bit next month, and am considering organizing some kind of hang for my paid readers. We’ll see. If there’s anything you think I should be checking out while I’m there, shoot me an email.

Today’s letter includes: Is Zach Bryan opening a bar in the West Village, mass layoffs at Meta, excellent customer service at Lauren Manoogian, and we might be approaching peak Catskills.

Have a story you want me to look into this week? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

Read more

Yesterday morning I was in Austin, interviewing Yahoo’s CEO Jim Lanzone at SXSW. Last night, I was at Vanity Fair’s Oscar party. Unfortunately (or fortunately), it was off the record. What I can tell you is that Mark Guiducci has it – he’s doing a fabulous job.

Back to Austin. My relationship with Yahoo started in 2015 when I interned there in college. I’d go to classes at night at FIT and work at Yahoo during the day. It was a formative work experience for me, albeit only one year. When Yahoo’s team reached out to me earlier this year to work with them at SXSW, it was an easy yes. I’ve been curious about their brand renaissance over the last few years – they threw a party with Delia Cai at Night Moves last month, they’ve had a full social media rebrand, and they collaborated with Graza.

Earlier this year, Yahoo launched an AI-powered search called Scout. My first reaction to playing around with it was delight. It feels clicky and friendly, something to play with rather than give tasks to like other AI agents. Last week, they launched something called MyScout, which allows users to create a personalized homepage tailored to their interests, almost like your own Apple News. In a tech landscape where everything feels focused on removing friction and optimizing, Yahoo is building products that make browsing the internet customizable and visually interesting.

I spent the weekend in Austin with the Yahoo team, and was quickly impressed by their CEO, Jim Lanzone. Lanzone’s background is in running media brands like CBS Digital, Tinder, and Ask.com. But something that revealed itself immediately to me was Lanzone’s interest in the world outside of tech. He collects vinyl, is on the board of the Newport Folk Festival, and attended a baseball game in Austin in between brand events at SXSW. During a press breakfast yesterday morning, I asked how he brings his interests outside of the office into the company, and how that influences company culture. He said that he has developed a sort of radar for the people he wants to work at Yahoo, people who value experimentation and trust, and want to build a better internet.

Yahoo is aware that they’re not trying to build a competitor to OpenAI or Anthropic, but I don’t think that should be the bar for success. You can actually build great tools and offer a great product to users without being a $380 billion company.

I didn’t tell the Yahoo team that I was going to do this, but I am offering anyone with an @yahoo.com email address 50% off of Feed Me annual subscriptions this week, here.

Other highlights of my Austin trip included: Lunch with Larry McGuire at Clark’s Oyster Bar, losing my Auralee virginity while shopping at ByGeorge, seeing a fantastic movie that my friends made called “Bagworm”, and a long dinner at Birdie’s with and (two of the few people who I can honestly speak about work with).

This week on the Feed Me Job Board: Bumble, Back-House, and Terrain.

Feed Me Job Board

• The space that Two Boots on Avenue A has occupied for 18 years is available for lease, and it probably comes with 18 years of cornmeal in the floorboards. $22,500/month, which means there’s a good chance whoever grabs it will be bringing $20 martinis to the hood. In a just world, it would become L’Industrie.

• New York is getting a new jazz club called The Pocket. The team behind it came from Jazz Standard, Crane Club, and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

• How Long Gone and Vogue’s podcast The Run Through worked together on a promo trade this week.

• The fabulous Harrison Vail posted a photo of the ashtrays used at the Vanity Fair party last night. You can buy your own for $1,045 here.

  

Today’s letter includes: LA’s Canyon Coffee is opening in Brooklyn next week (plus details on their pastry program), shallow graves in the Hamptons, a Tribeca hotel sold for $69 million, and traditional media companies are partnering with successful podcasts.

Have a story you want me to look into this week? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

• Fat Mascara, one of the most reliable and well-researched beauty (and business) podcasts, is relaunching with People Inc. My mornings have been noticeably quieter since Jennifer G. Sullivan and Jessica Matlin paused the show last spring after a ten-year run. Matlin (who is also Director of Beauty and Home at Moda Operandi) will relaunch the podcast later this month. Sullivan now works at The New York Times. This was smart of People Inc. and makes me wonder if other legacy media companies will partner with established podcasts, rather than building new ones in-house (Vox did this last year with Bella Freud’s “Fashion Neurosis,” The New York Times did this last year with “The Sports Gossip Show”).

• Happy spring from the marzipan lambs at Veniero’s.

  @venierospastry

  

  Italian pastries and desserts on Instagram: "Angelo is at his s…

Read more

Today’s newsletter includes: Peter Rahal responds to your emergency press conference questions, A24 opened a merch store in China, a London institution is opening a hotel in New York, and concern for Gowanus residents.

A mass panic flooded the internet yesterday when David Protein customers learned that the famed 150-calorie bars might actually contain twice as many calories and four times as much fat as what’s listed on their Magnum-condom-colored gold label.

David* is no stranger to controversy. The internet gawked at its $75 million Series A funding round last year. Earlier this year, they sent a handful of unsuspecting recipients (including me) a vibrator as part of a marketing campaign around their new bars. Last month, Dr. Peter Attia stepped down as the company’s Chief Science Officer after his name appeared over 1,700 times** in the Epstein files.

Yesterday, Feed Me readers had the opportunity to ask Peter Rahal, David’s founder and CEO, anything they wanted about the nutrition label fiasco during an emergency press conference (held in a Substack chat).

Below are Rahal’s responses. He addresses Peter Attia, David’s viral cod, the law firm they’re using, and Clavicular. Please find a quiet place to sit down, lock in, and learn the truth about David.

*David has advertised with Feed Me in the past.

**And earlier version of this newsletter said Peter Attia’s name appeared several times in the Epstein files. It’s been updated to say “over 1,700 times.”

“I would love the tea on how they let Dr. Peter Attia ‘go’ and if that is actually real.”

Obviously, this surprised all of us. I recommended he take a step back from all his commitments from CBS, David, and Eight Sleep to focus on his family and patients. I don’t think anyone likes cancel culture. We don’t want to go back to that period of time of witch hunting. But I strongly felt it was best for Peter to take a step back and focus on his family.

Why did the Attia story blow up? This is my theory: because the DOJ has failed to serve justice to all the victims of Epstein and it’s clearly a cover-up going on, the public has taken matters into their own hands and I think that made Peter a perfect target. If the DOJ was doing its job, I do not know if the spotlight would have been put on Peter.

“How many calories are the David bars REALLY?”

150 calories for 62 grams of bar.

Why would tests show the calorie count be closer to 260 than the listed 150 calories?

So the reason David is showing as 260 calories is simply because they are using the wrong test. If you use a Bomb Calorimeter, which burns food to measure how much energy (calories) a food contains, then non-nutritive items are going to show up as 4/4/9. That is not how you test or measure food.

FDA rules require the use of metabolizable energy—the actual energy the human body can absorb and use—not combustion energy. This distinction matters enormously for ingredients such as dietary fiber, certain sweeteners, and fat substitutes like esterified propoxylated glycerol (EPG). When burned in a calorimeter, these ingredients appear to deliver far more calories than the body actually receives.

That is why the FDA mandates specific calculation methods for these ingredients. David Protein follows those rules precisely. EPG has been reviewed by the FDA through multiple GRAS notices and is assigned a caloric value of 0.7 kcal per gram—compared with 9 kcal per gram for conventional fats. Our labels accurately reflect this FDA-recognized, metabolizable value.

Our products are labeled correctly and in full compliance with all FDA regulations. The claims in this lawsuit misrepresent how calories are determined under U.S. nutrition labeling standards.

“Which law firm are you hiring? How are you feeling?”

Alex Spiro. We are going to counter-sue. It’s pretty frustrating but the plaintiff lawyers even admitted to not knowing that non-nutritive ingredients are not measured via a bomb calorimeter. An unfortunate thing in the food business is the proliferation of plaintiff lawyers who try to shake down brands, because they have no cost and only upside when they file frivolous lawsuits.

“When you found out about the lawsuit were you shocked? Or was it a matter-of-time type of thing?”

Not surprised at all. An unfortunate part of American culture and the food industry is that there is a huge list of law firms that have no cost and attempt to shake down new brands. At RXBAR* this happened and it will happen at David today and in the future. An interesting observation is that these types of frivolous lawsuits are correlated with Walmart target distribution. It’s as if these lawyers are walking Walmart for victims. If you are in Walmart as a brand, you have enough money to pay them to settle.

*Editor’s note: Peter co-founded RXBAR, which sold to Kellogg’s for $600 million.

“Not lawsuit related: You changed the formulation for David bars from allulose/stevia/monk fruit to sucralose/malitol/aspartame. I’m guessing this was primarily cost motivated, given how expensive allulose is, but a little flavor motivated as well, since the bars are now noticeably sweeter. Were you confident your customers would only care about calories and macros, especially since it’s processed food either way, or did this feel like a gamble? Given the interest in allulose is growing, do you think it’s an ingredient that still shows promise?”

Allulose is an amazing ingredient, sweet and only 0.4 calories per gram, but a disaster in protein bars. Our ice cream is driven by allulose. The only reason for the shift away from allulose was due to a reaction called the Maillard reaction. It’s an interaction between protein and sugars. In a steak it’s great, you actually want it, it gives you these nice umami brown tonalities. In a protein bar, you do not. In a protein bar, it massively interferes with the taste, color, and texture of the product, and with time it accelerates.

When we started, we massively underestimated the impact the Maillard reaction would have on the bars over its shelf life. After 30 days, it was a terrible product. To solve this problem, we had to significantly reduce allulose. Allulose’s primary function in the bar was binding and sweetening. As a result, we lost a lot of sweetness and when we increased stevia and monk fruit to compensate for the loss of sweetness from the reduction of allulose, we were observing that nasty bitter artificial taste that lingers, which I’m sure everyone is very familiar with. In order to make sure we had a clean sweet taste, we moved to artificial sweeteners: sucralose and ace-k. These sweeteners are obviously slightly controversial, but after digging into the literature, it was clear that the fear around them was misunderstood. The gist around artificial sweeteners is: The dose makes the poison. This concept of dose is really important to understand. Too much water can kill you by diluting the electrolytes in your body, however we do not draw the conclusion that water is bad. To make people even more comfortable, the dosing and usage rates of artificial sweeteners in food vs. beverage is different. Beverage requires a 2-4x usage rate than food.

Fundamentally, we need to make a bar that tastes great over time, and it was a very obvious decision. I understand that if you don’t know something or if something is “artificial,” people assume bad. However, the world is more complicated and there is more nuance. Arsenic is natural. There are mushrooms that can kill you. While a simple heuristic like, “Only eat foods you know” might be helpful, understanding nutrition requires a more sophisticated approach than a simple heuristic.

The gist: I see nutrition moving away from being religious and ideologically driven to something that is more evidence-based and logical. For those reasons, we were very comfortable with the transition as it was unequivocally in the best interest of the product and our customers.

“Is this suit causing your team to shift their ice cream launch strategy? How are you thinking about adjusting currently in-flight marketing, if at all?”

No changes.

“How does it feel being the brand face of Target? [David is featured prominently in their latest TV commercial promoting activity, health, and wellness.] How long did that relationship take?”

Feels great. They are a great retailer. It’s a privilege.

“In light of this class action lawsuit, will you now be bringing on Clavicular to help ProteinMogg the competition?”

Haha Clavicular certainly would understand the science behind what we are doing and understand that David can help everyone Ascend.

“David bar x Live Nation/Ticketmaster lawsuit PR collab when”

I don’t know the Live Nation tea.

“Why won’t u let other people use EPG?”

We will sell it, and open for business. That narrative ran because content creators get more views with that story.

“How will you regain the confidence of consumers after this?”

• Make sure the truth gets shared

• Counter-sue

• Working on hiring Rachel McAdams as our new chief science officer

• Good use of AI

• In the food industry and with the FDA, EPG is viewed as the holy grail. It has enormous public-health potential and solves the biggest issue in the American diet. Energy toxicity—overconsumption of calories—is one the largest drivers of negative health outcomes.

“Do you think David’s hyperbolic messaging and marketing (”the most effective portable protein” ‘protein perfected’) made the company an easy target for class action attorneys?”

Not our messaging, more how innovative and novel our bars are. You can think about it like this: the greater the innovation, the more likely it is to be a target. This is part of the territory for anything that is real innovation. It’s easy to be misunderstood and a target.

“Do you have any advice for your loving customers who treat TikTok as news/truth?”

Please do not believe all the content you consume. Content creators have an incentive for negative news even if it’s not true.

“Is there a plan to study the effects of long-term, regular EPG consumption? Given EPG is your competitive advantage, both for your bars and I’m guessing your ice cream, as well, what is the Plan B if there is a larger backlash against this ingredient?”

Yes, this has been studied. EPG has been around since the early 90s and has an interesting history. The gold-standard test is called the three-generation reproduction toxicity study. The results of that study had no adverse effects. It’s also very logical. EPG is non-nutritive, meaning the body is not using it for energy or building similarly to insoluble fiber.

I understand that new things are scary. I have really applied rigor to this as it is my life’s work at this point. I understand the ingredient. If it makes you feel better, I feed it to my 2-year-old.

“You went from putting 6 ingredients in RXBars to needing a ‘Protein System,’ ‘Binding System,’ ‘Fat System,’ and ‘Flavor System’ just to explain what’s in a David. At what point did ‘clean’ stop being the mission & macros become the entire story?”

I used the same approach with RXBar that I did with David. RX binding system was dates. Protein system was egg whites and almonds. These are the fundamental compounds that make a protein bar. They are both first-principle approaches to product design, however the difference between David and RX are the assumptions. RX assumed that the paleo diet was the correct nutrition guidelines. David assumes it’s nutrient driven. Protein, carbs, and fat are the 3 macronutrients. What people want in a protein bar is the most protein with the least amount of other nutrients. Protein is the key nutrient, and people want it to taste great and at a good price. RXBar was ideology-based. David is evidence-based.

“How much cod have you actually sold / was it a strategic move to broaden your market for the antitrust suit?”

One unit per day is our average. No, it was a funny move. We are in the protein business, and cod has the best protein-to-calorie ratio. CFP (calories from protein) is a really important metric when thinking about snacks. It supported our mission of high performance and tools that help you increase muscle and decrease fat. Building a brand has to be fun.

“What’s next after ice cream?”

Some cod.

This week on the Feed Me Job Board: The Six Bells, AFLALO, and Dr. Idriss. 💼

Feed Me Job Board

• Frozen yogurt store Culture is opening a third location in Gramercy. If you’re unfamiliar with Culture, they landed the top spot in The Infatuation’s ranking of New York’s best frozen yogurt (based on how much they taste like yogurt). Nobody asked, but Culture’s Park Slope location is my favorite frozen yogurt in the city, with Forty Carrots coming in as a close second. I like to sit at the counter at Forty Carrots, where you’re forced to stare directly into a mirror.

• Angelika Saleh of Angelika Film Center died at 90. I’d never seen a photo of her before this story – she seemed like such a cool, beautiful woman, and what a generous gift she gave to the city. Alex Traub, an obituarist at The New York Times, is always a pleasure to read. The top comment on the story reads: “I worked at the Angelika box office selling tickets when I was 15 years old, in 1993. My uncle, a Baghdadi Jew from India, was close friends with Joe Saleh & Angelika, and I remember the opening party for the theater in 1989 like it was yesterday. I loved getting to watch free films downstairs after my shifts!” Sweet.

• A24 opened a merch store in China. It’s inside the offices of Alibaba.

• The Wolseley, a grand all-day cafe in London (formerly run by Jeremy King), is opening a hotel in New York City by 2027. There will be 76 rooms and an all-day brasserie, and it will be located near Times Square. If 2026 is the year New Yorkers fell in love with Guinness, perhaps we’ll all be ready for Sunday roasts by 2027.

• Caper, the food media startup created by Puck alumni, finally launched its website. Loewe is a presenting sponsor.

• From the Feed Me Tip Line: “I’m hearing more and more about toxic sites and soil vapor intrusion in Gowanus (wish I heard about this a few years ago before I moved here). Real estate developers and landlords just don’t care and it’s scary to be a Gowanus resident right now. Voice of Gowanus and NYU recently released this health survey and I wanted to help get the word out.” For more context, The New York Times published an alarming piece about the same issue in 2024.

• What is the Hoffman Process really like? Some of the people I know who’ve been don’t seem transformed at all, but maybe that’s why the retreat sells itself on internal work. GQ published a story today about the $6,200 weeklong practice where phones, exercise, and talking about jobs are prohibited. If you have ever been or know someone who has, can you tell us about it in the comment section?

• The Hollywood Reporter’s Editor-in-Chief Maer Roshan interviewed Harvey Weinstein from Rikers Island. Weinstein is on the white-guy memoir circuit, telling Roshan that he’s been reading “Graydon’s memoir. Barry Diller’s. Keith McNally’s, which was incredible.” Roshan, who was the founding editor of the thrice-launched and thrice-shuttered Radar magazine, has been delivering scoops like this since I was in elementary school.

• Apple launched a new Instagram account. In an email from their team, I learned that @helloapple will serve as a place “where fans and followers can have one place for Apple news and information, designed to tell stories, share news, and amplify our incredible creator community.”

• Congratulations on five years of !

• Congratulations on one year of !

Yesterday, I went to the Financial District to investigate if this lobster statue in front of Arturo Di Modica’s charging bull on Wall Street was real. By the time I arrived downtown, there was no lobster. It was the first time in my life I really questioned my ability to decipher AI-generated content from real photos. Turns out it was real, but removed before I got there. Several people on Instagram were tagging Red Hook-based artist Andrew Logan (who posted about and then deleted the lobster) as the man behind the sculpture, so I reached out to him and have not heard yet.

Then! this morning, Taktile CEO Maik Taro Wehmeyer posted on LinkedIn taking credit for the stunt. “Today, Taktile launches Taktile Labs. We dropped the lobster on Wall Street yesterday to ask the question: are banks ready for autonomous agents?” Taktile is an AI-powered financial decision-making platform, that has raised almost $80mm in funding. I guess it connects well to the company’s mission: Are banks ready for AI? The bull and the lobster? Decent symbolism.

Today’s letter includes: A former Condé Nast editor lands an Editor-in-Chief role at Playboy, why David bars are making you gain weight, Substack is on a manhunt for the fashion writer who spoke to New York Magazine, and an early review of Simpson’s in the Strand.

Have a story you want me to look into this week? Reply to this email or text the anonymous Feed Me Tip Line: ‪(646) 494-3916‬

• Playboy announced this morning that Phillip Picardi is the magazine’s new Chief Brand Officer and Editor-in-Chief. The public peak of ’s career for me will always be when he was Chief Content Officer at Teen Vogue. This was circa 2018. Elaine Welteroth (who now runs Birth Fund) and Marie Suter (who ran creative at Glossier for over seven years and now has her own creative studio) were also shaping the magazine, as the editor-in-chief and creative director, respectively. Since his time at Teen Vogue, Picardi has been the founding editor of them., held roles at Out Magazine, Weight Watchers, and WME, and studied at Harvard Divinity School. Picardi told ADWEEK, “The idea that we need a publication that is able to explain sexuality as a cultural force, especially as our younger folks are facing a sex recession and loneliness epidemic—it felt like the right challenge.” Earlier this year, I reported on Playboy’s Substack launch.

• Vanity Fair is hiring a Global Visuals Director.

• There has been class action lawsuit filed against David Protein. According to the lawsuit, the bars contain “significantly more calories and fat than advertised.” Real Coach Carr moves. (Disclosure that David has advertised with Feed Me before)

• And I thought this new Clavicular video was a David Protein partnership tease. David founder Peter Rahal confirmed to me that it is not.

  @clavicular0

  

  Clavicular on Instagram: "5pm est. March 13. Kick.com/clavicula…

Read more