Trump Is Strangling the Life Out of D.C.’s Restaurants

“We’re back to a very pandemic-feeling city.”

(Composite / GettyImages / Shutterstock)

BY DONALD TRUMP’S TELLING, WASHINGTON, D.C.’s restaurants are doing great. And, naturally, it’s all because of him.

“Friends of mine are going out to dinner,” Trump told reporters Monday, claiming that his deployment of federal forces brought unaccustomed tranquility to the streets of the nation’s capital. “They haven’t gone out to dinner in four years, they were petrified. Half the restaurants closed because nobody could go because they’re afraid to go outside. Now those restaurants are opening, and new restaurants are opening up, it’s like a boomtown.”

Hold up. We’re supposed to believe that “half the restaurants” in the city were closed? Because Washingtonians were cowering at home, peeking through their blinds? Famed chef and humanitarian José Andrés fired back in a tweet:

Andrés is right. Trump’s deployment of 2,300 National Guard troops and 500 federal law enforcement agents has hurt foot traffic, chilled business, and made people cancel trips and nights out. It is slowly choking the life out of Washington, D.C. restaurants, which were still struggling to gain their post-pandemic footing just as Trump returned to town and started firing tens of thousands of their customers.

Shawn Townsend, head of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, announced that the city’s annual Restaurant Week is being extended because of the business-dampening effects of Trump’s actions, noting that “reservations were down in restaurants pretty significantly” the week after Trump launched his federal takeover. Data from OpenTable shows restaurant reservations down 24 percent from last year’s Restaurant Week, the New York Times reported.

But numbers tell only part of the story. In interviews with restaurant owners, chefs, and workers, another picture emerged: that of small businesses being harmed by a president who was elected because of his purported business acumen; of a man whose obsession with appearing tough on crime now threatens to sabotage urban economies across the country.

“People used to say Washington is recession-proof. Today Washington is a recession magnet,” Immigrant Food cofounder and “Restaurateur of the Year” candidate Peter Schechter told me. “We’re back to a very pandemic-feeling city. There are fewer people going to work, fewer people walking around, fewer cars, reservations are down, events have been canceled.”

Schechter has four locations in the D.C. area. While the businesses there were experiencing harm from Trump’s crackdown, he noted that the macro impact was more nuanced. Not all events were being canceled outright, he explained. Some were being relocated to the Immigrant Food location in Virginia across the river, where the belief is immigrants will be safer than in D.C. proper.

The realization that Trump’s crime crackdown in D.C. is really an anti-immigrant roundup has impacted other restaurants in the nation’s capital. The Tex-Mex breakfast taco shop La Tejana, which is owned by a Rio Grande Valley native, closed for two weeks. On the eve of its Friday reopening, the owners posted a statement on Instagram mourning the changed climate for immigrants and business owners:

As we prepare to reopen we are painfully aware that the city we left just two weeks ago has transformed into something completely foreign to the DC we know, love, and are proud to call home. The federal occupation has created a climate of palpable fear that is being felt in every corner of the city and in particular the restaurant industry. Hardworking people on their way to and from work (you know, the ones who make up the backbone of the entire local economy) are getting snatched up and detained.

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“Trump’s rhetoric is incredibly damaging to tourism”

Schechter comes from a family of immigrants. His father always said America saved him and Schecter’s mother by giving them the ability to build a new life.

“Everything I love about this country is connected to the DNA of America viewing itself as an immigrant nation,” Schechter told me. Before he started restaurants with José Andrés, he was the first director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, which was founded to forge stronger ties between Latin America and the United States.

But by the time he left the Atlantic Council in 2018, he had begun to wonder whether the traditional American self-understanding of this as an immigrant nation was being eroded. This concern inspired him to go back to his roots, to start Immigrant Food. As he described it to me, the concept had two pillars: culinary and service experience; and celebration, education, and advocacy on behalf of immigrants and the “economic grit and cultural diversity” they have brought to this country.

For years, Schechter was enthused by the mission, understanding how the restaurant industry is a unique hub for immigrant workers. But now he feels it threatened again—and the threats are hitting close to home.

“Employees are absolutely terrified, there are a whole raft of websites and chats that track where people see ICE and other federal agents,” he told me. “A lot of employees, many of whom are legal immigrants, are constantly on their phones, scared to commute to work and scared the workplace will be raided. There’s a sense of fear and consternation from employees, guests, and consumers. People just don’t want to hang right now.”

I’ve seen another aspect of this in my coverage of Trump’s immigration dragnet. Business owners who work in impacted industries want their stories told, but they also fear that telling those stories will perpetuate a cycle of bad publicity and add to their lost revenue.

“Trump’s rhetoric is incredibly damaging to tourism,” one D.C. restaurant owner said, asking for anonymity to speak candidly. “People are too scared to put out numbers, but the tourism industry in D.C. is hurting.”

“Even before militarizing the city, the raids and targeting of specific restaurants in D.C. had that initial chilling effect,” another restaurant co-owner told me. The military zone, they said, has only worsened the situation.

Grace Ramirez, a chef from New York, told The Bulwark she is witnessing a disastrous domino effect from D.C. to Miami, New York, Houston, Dallas, and Los Angeles. “Everybody is suffering, it’s really bad.”

Ramirez is an alum of the James Beard Foundation’s Chef Bootcamp for Policy and Change program, which teaches chefs how to constructively get involved in political issues that affect the industry, and a member of Seat at the Table, a coalition that advocates reforms to the immigration system. Even before Trump set the military roaming city streets, D.C. restaurants were dealing with difficulties—like a pronounced labor shortage. In response, they raised wages. But they did so as Trump’s tariffs began hitting hard, with food and liquor costs rising. Add a lack of tourism to the mix—“with barely any foot traffic, plus people not spending or drinking as much”—and it’s a recipe for failure.

“Every week I receive a call from friends saying they are closing shop or going to work for Daniel or Jean-Georges restaurants because smaller restaurants have smaller margins,” she said. “Before the pandemic they were tight, 20 percent margins, but now they’re 5 percent. So smaller restaurants live month-to-month. Before, the holidays would save you. But this year, I don’t know.”