Kosher Food and Drink

Just yesterday, it was (incorrectly) announced that Baltimore ice cream shop, The YOG House (www.yog-house.com, 6053 Falls Rd, Baltimore, MD 21209, just south of Lake Avenue), was under the kosher supervision of Rabbi Y. Zvi Weiss. This post below was later removed after it turned out to be false. But as with anything on the internet, word had spread quickly.

When anything is newly announced kosher, particularly in a city where there are not endless options, it is received with great fanfare. As word excitedly spread, we at Kosher Food & Drink reached out to Rabbi Weiss for a copy of the teudah (letter of kosher certification) and any other comment. Rabbi Weiss immediately replied that he was not offering any kosher certification and had no idea where this rumor started. We were left even more confused by finding the following (now deleted) Instagram post from The YOG House, combined with reports that an OU teudah was being hung inside the store.

Rabbi Weiss soon issued comment via Baltimore Jewish Life to clear up any misconception:

Miriam Tarshish-Marizan, an admin of the regional WhatsApp group, Great Kosher Mid Atlantic (part of the larger Great Kosher Restaurant Foodies social media group), which allows chatting about local restaurants, today did further research, including speaking to Rabbi Richard Levine of OU Kosher, and wrote up the following info:

1. The certification by the door has been taken down; it was a certification for the manufacturer of the products, not the store. The previous owner (when the store changed ownership in March) told Audrey, the new owner, to keep it up. Rabbi Levine said to take it down as it was not reflective of the entirety of the store.
2. Audrey will work to get the store certified kosher, hopefully it happens soon. She will be in touch with Rabbi Weiss.
3. The frozen yogurt products and sorbets are OU but we didn’t go back to look at the packages. Audrey has a stack of teudot for these products.
4. Because the OU does not certify mom-and-pop shops outside the tri-state area, this location cannot get OU certification. Therefore, this location is not considered a kosher-certified establishment.
5. The Instagram post bearing the OU symbol was taken down as well. Audrey only recently posted it because a customer walked in last week and told her to put it up, seeing that nearly all the products are certified OU. She has always maintained that her store is kosher-friendly, but has been reluctant to post that the store is kosher because it’s not certified.
6. We do not know where the rumor that Rabbi Weiss certified the place originated, and at this point it’s likely moot.

As it stands, while some products in the store come into the store kosher, nothing is officially certified, so for now, YOG House should be treated as any other unsupervised store containing non-kosher products and an uncertain status.

The community should be thankful to have new owners who clearly are mindful of the kosher population and are seeking ways to be inclusive of the entire community. We look forward to hopefully hearing news that the store is under kosher supervision soon.

This is yet another lesson that it is always important to not believe everything you read on the internet and to make sure you see a current teudah before partaking.