A pop-up dome restaurant opened under a Toronto expressway and is facing backlash after several homeless camps nearby were given eviction notices.
Dinner With a View is advertised as a “completely luxurious dining experience in a highly unexpected setting,” but others are saying it’s bad taste.
Diners pay $149 to reserve a heated glass dome underneath a Toronto expressway. To eat a three-course meal in the dome runs an additional $99 per person, not including tip, taxes and processing fees for the ticket.
Reservations for the venue requires a minimum of four guests.
CBC reports the pop-up restaurant’s opening comes less than a month after the city evicted a homeless camp at a separate location underneath the same expressway.
Six other homeless camps nearby have received eviction notices as well.
Anti-poverty activist of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) have organized a protest meal dispersion next to the venue on Friday night.
The protest event is called Dinner With a View– of the Rich.
Volunteers will be serving the free three-course meal with a full view of the attendants of Dinner With a View.
Diners of the terrarium-themed restaurant will have their meals prepared by Top Chef season four winner Rene Rodriguez, while an organizer with OCAP reportedly told CBC, “Our chefs haven’t won any TV shows, but they do win at human decency.”
The Toronto location, set to run through May 2, is the first of four venues for the restaurant.
Tickets for their Montreal pop-up are available online and Vancouver and San Diego are listed as locations that are coming soon.
Dinner With a View took to Instagram on Wednesday to release a statement on the backlash and claims they are “sympathetic to those impacted by the City’s actions and were no way involved with the decision making process.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvxhSknA0KS/
They also suggested those who have questions regarding the removal of the homeless camps to contact the City of Toronto.
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