Kosher Food and Drink

According to the DC Kosher rav hamachshir for Shouk, the restaurant has permanently closed both locations (Rockville, MD and Washington, DC) as of 8:30PM this evening.

Shouk was a vegan falafel chain that, at its peak, had five restraurants in Maryland and DC. Shouk was clearly an Israeli restaurant given the name and hamsa iconography, but always sort of winked at its origins (the “about” page doesn’t even mention any sort of regional or national origin). I ate there and ordered delivery many times while working in northern Virginia; while I was never much of a fan of the Shouk Burger, they made an excellent falafel and oyster-mushroom-pseudo-shwarma.

Shouk was certainly impacted by a soft-boycott by folks who objected to Israeli actions in the current political situation. However, I’m not sure I think that’s the whole story, and I’d like to relate a different take I privately gave on their situation in mid-June:

Shouk’s core business problem isn’t that they’re Israeli or that they have a less-known hechsher; it’s that they’re charging like thirteen bucks for a falafel in pita[1] and have a very limited menu. And it’s a good falafel, but let’s face it, if I feel like overpaying for food, I’m going to go to Oh Mama Grill and get a schnitzel or shwarma pita for like fifteen bucks instead. I say this as someone who’s spent _plenty_ of money buying food from Shouk and is very familiar with their offerings. They need to change things up on the menu side, preferably without resorting to piles of deep-fried garbage.

I’m not wishing these dudes to go out of business, but complacency kills, and they seem sorta complacent.

[1] Also more expensive than their non-kosher competition, from what I can see.

Obviously, for the kosher vegan/vegetarian crowd who (rightly) demand a hechsher for vegan food, this is a pretty big loss, and they especially have my sympathies. It was a perfectly fine restaurant chain, and losing them removes a decent option for kosher diners. That said, DC residents still have Pow Pow, which is a different sort of restaurant, but still kosher and vegan.