It was Restaurant Day in Helsinki, where on the third Saturday of February, May, August, and November, anyone can open a restaurant, anywhere.
Karen Burshtein in On Restaurant Day in Helsinki, Anyone Can Open an Eatery, Anywhere
Better make your plans for one of those four weekends. Everyone, anyone, can open a restaurant with no reviews, no health department inspections, no nothing besides their own initiative.
One couple, from Spain, opened a ceviche stand. A schoolgirl sold muffins. This started in 2011 when”Timo Santala wanted to start a mobile bicycle bar, selling drinks and tapas.” I can get behind this big time. When it started,
In May 2011, they launched their first event. Participants opened restaurants in lingerie shops, on unused railroad tracks, in people’s kitchens and attics, and in bus stops. There was a restaurant for babies. Cooks got creative, serving everything from crayfish soup on their boats to entrees made with grasshoppers. A Michelin-starred chef grilled hamburgers and gave them out for free.
Karen Burshtein in On Restaurant Day in Helsinki, Anyone Can Open an Eatery, Anywhere
This lead to a social movement. “It helps that there have been no known instances of food poisoning stemming from Restaurant Day, according to Elisabeth Rundlöf, a marketing manager for the City of Helsinki.” And while this movement has spread to other countries where authorities can make it difficult, they tent to turn a blind eye on the extremely popular event.
You can read more about it. International events occur in Nicaragua. That’s close enough for us.