Welcome to Open Tab, a weekly roundup of news, gossip, and stories that have stayed open in my tabs all week. Last week we covered the shocking number of hot sauces aboard the Artemis II.
Among the many bombshell revelations in this week’s New Yorker exposé on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (namely: lying a lot) was a tidbit that I can’t stop thinking about. “Altman interrupted his ‘war room’ at six o’clock each evening with a round of Negronis,” Ronan Farrow wrote. Negronis…every night? We need to introduce this man to new cocktails. Also in the ether: Danny Meyer’s new book, What Could Possibly Go Right?, comes out in late September. What can we expect? Lessons in business, hospitality, the grindset, etc. How will this differ from previous books? Amazing question.
Also this week: A scathing review of Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes’ restaurant has gone viral, Philz Coffee removes Pride flags from several locations, the predictive power of Pizza place location data, and the grocery stores throwing raves.
Nicole Rose was not happy that her martini took 45 minutes to arrive during her recent dinner at 1587 Prime, the Kansas City restaurant owned by Chiefs teammates Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes. “We had $15 steak sauces ordered,” she says, outraged, in a now viral TikTok. “They did not come. They forgot them.” The complaints continue, but I’ll save you the click: She paid $650 for a mid steak dinner with what sounds like not-amazing service.
Not to be a hater (famous last words), but what were we expecting? If you’re eating at a celebrity’s restaurant, you’re essentially dining at a theme restaurant where the theme is, like, being famous. As a spokesperson for the restaurant told me months ago, Kelce and Mahomes’ actual involvement in the restaurant is limited.
This week The New York Times asked if wokeness left us worse off. It’s an interesting conversation about how the aesthetics of liberalism work in praxis…yadda yadda yadda I am a pretentious gay guy, you get it. It’s certainly not for me to say if woke is dead, or if we might be, on the other hand, “So back.” But one thing is for sure: The front-and-center visible liberalism of the early 2020s is on its last legs. The latest defeat for woke? San Francisco–born coffee chain Philz Coffee, which announced this week that it will be removing Pride flags from all its locations—eight weeks before Pride Month no less!!! Is this the inevitable result of the chain’s acquisition by private equity last year? Are we doomed to watch Philz enshittify as so many PE-backed concepts have?
According to a statement from the CEO sent to the San Francisco Chronicle, which reported the story, Philz’s “longstanding support of the LGBTQIA+ community is unchanged.” A nice sentiment, but let’s see you put your money where your mouth is, Philz!
Yeah, you can read the news. Or you can keep an eye on the pizza restaurants near the Pentagon. That’s conceit behind Pentagon Pizza Report, an X account that tracks the activity at pizza spots near the Pentagon. More activity? Something’s happening, for sure. But wait, there’s more: Pizza spots may not be the sole predictor of global crises. Gay bars, as it turns out, are also a predictor of military and government overtime work.
