Independent food media is rich and vibrant, from Slop’s celebration of sacred food practices and traditions, to Cake Zine’s bold and full-bodied deep dives into candy, cookies, and pies. Tanya Bush, Cake Zine’s co-founder, as well as a Brooklyn-based writer and pastry chef at Egg, has a staunch, thoughtful allegiance to food merch. “As a small business owner, I’m all too aware of the importance of merch on increasingly narrow margins. It’s an easy way for me to support businesses I care about.” Bush often wears Superiority Burger’s Vegan Night t-shirt and a Mold Magazine bag, “which is perfect for schlepping ingredients to the restaurant and, unlike most totes, miraculously has pockets.”
“I read and admire Mold and eat at Superiority Burger at least twice a month, so it’s nice to integrate both of them into my everyday life,” she adds.
COVID felt like a particular inflection point for restaurant and food brand merch—with kitchens closed, it was a way to support our much-missed local spots and for businesses to make some revenue. That spirit of support has lingered—but can that spirit keep hospitality afloat with increasingly fewer covers, shorter checks, more caps?
“We have entered a dark world where restaurants count on merch sales to make their year by adding $40 coffee mugs to their Deliveroo page in hopes that some fool will snatch one up alongside their Coke Zero,” says Jason Stewart, a DJ, Substack writer, and one half of the How Long Gone podcast, who often wears a hat from Fish King, a seafood market in L.A.’s Glendale neighborhood he’s been going to for decades. “And a long-sleeved t-shirt from Mario’s Deli—that’s been demoted as gym clothes,” he adds. Jason’s collection is small and predominantly features businesses he patronizes and loves. “One should never wear merch that one doesn’t believe in,” he notes.
As Stewart says, it’s become harder to discern actual taste with a glut of t-shirts and totes. It’s not dissimilar to the cultural neutering music merch has gone through. “People consider merch to be clothes with words on them, instead of a badge of honor they earned, and are telling the world they support the artistic endeavors of someone or something they love,” he says. ”It’s like someone saying, ‘I love music,’ instead of a specific artist. It reminds me of when the Kardashians started wearing obscure Metallica t-shirts, and Metalhead dudes would get angry and demand Kendall name five of their songs. I’m going up to some knob in a River Cafe tote and asking them to name five mains.” If merch should be made with intention, does a screen-printed Fruit of the Loom tee cut it anymore? “It’s painfully plain to see when a piece of merch is disposable, thoughtless, or ill-intended. Death to false merchandise, I say,” Stewart concludes.
