Feeding the Candidates, Fueling the Polls

What it’s like hosting a high-profile political figure at your restaurant, photo ops and all

Michael De Los Santos started to suspect this was going to be a big deal when he saw a bunch of guys in suits and sunglasses eating at his restaurant, Mike D’s BBQ in Durham, North Carolina, earlier that week. “My staff was like, Mike, I think FBI agents are here,” he says. He had been contacted by the local Democratic party about renting out the restaurant on a day when it was closed, to host a private event, but they wouldn’t say who for. The suits were the only hint.

On Juneteenth 2024, De Los Santos would host second gentleman Doug Emhoff at Mike D’s — the men in suits had been Secret Service agents, scoping out the restaurant to make sure there was nothing suspicious. Emhoff met with other politicians at the restaurant, and spoke about how important North Carolina is to the presidential election. And then, he asked for a tour. “He wanted to go out back to see our smoker in action,” says De Los Santos. “We had an event that night for Juneteenth, so I had a bunch of briskets on the smoker. He was excited to see that, and had one of his staff take pictures of him with the meat on the smoker.”

Emhoff could have visited any of the over 150 restaurants in downtown Durham. But he went to Mike D’s BBQ, a Black-owned business, on Juneteenth, because, De Los Santos believes, he and the Democratic party were trying to send a message. “East Durham is a historically Black community, it’s not a neighborhood full of folks who are supporting Trump,” says De Los Santos. “I think the optics of showing up at a Black business on Juneteenth, and just being around some regular folk, the campaign wanted to show this is a demographic that they care about.”

Mike D’s BBQ

The restaurant visit has become a staple of political campaigns, because eating in public remains one of the most humanizing things a politician can do. “A fundamental tension in American politics is that we all know campaigning is one long flim-flam spectacle, yet we also want to vote for someone who isn’t a phony — someone who’s authentic,” wrote Meghan McCarron about politicians eating their way through the Iowa state fair. “They can also communicate, knowingly and unknowingly, accurately and inaccurately, reams of information that indicate their real beliefs about class, race, gender, and region, based on precisely which barbecue joint or fish shack they visit, what they order there, and how they eat it.”

So it’s no surprise that the strategy of choosing which restaurants to visit and when is a massive consideration of any political campaign. According to an aide to a member of Congress who’d like to remain anonymous, there is of course a vetting process for restaurants. The campaign will ensure there haven’t been negative news stories associated with the place, or that the owner isn’t problematic. But mostly, they want to ensure the restaurant connects the politician to a wider community or population. “If we are weak in a certain area of the state or city, we’ll pick a restaurant there that is known in the community, and it signals to folks that we know what they like,” says the aide.

For instance, former president Donald Trump recently made an appearance at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, pretending to serve customers who were actually vetted supporters picking up bags of food he did not actually make. “There really was no message there other than ‘Kamala Harris is a liar’ and that he loves McDonald’s,” said Adam Chandler, the author of Drive-Thru Dreams, which dissects American culture through the lens of fast food; Trump has claimed that Harris is lying about having worked at McDonald’s in college, despite having no evidence. But his presence reinforces ideas Trump hopes voters have of him. Namely, that despite being a convicted felon and on the record saying he wants to make the rich richer, that he is relatable to the everyman. “He loves the fries: It’s a standard part of his order. And everyone else loves the fries too,” Chandler said. “So to see him make the fries is probably special and meaningful to a certain part of the country.”

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris recently made a stop at 4th Street Delicatessen in Philadelphia, where she shook hands with diners before giving a speech about how voters have more in common than differences, and then got a pastrami on rye to go. “I feel more like I’m able to have a personal connection with [candidates] compared to some other candidates who maybe I’ve never seen or met before,” said deli worker Ethan Cruz to WHYY about meeting politicians in person, though he’s not yet old enough to vote.

Joe Pittack, co-owner of Ted and Wally’s ice cream shop in Omaha, Nebraska, understands why the Harris campaign reached out to him about someone stopping by. The Benson neighborhood where it’s located is known for its food and music scene, and for being an official Creative District, with state funding going to support the arts. As such, it’s a center of liberal politics in Nebraska, where Harris has been focused on getting votes due to Nebraska’s unique electoral college system, in which the electoral vote is split into three, leaving room for a Democratic candidate to win a vote in a liberal congressional district like Omaha, even if the rest of the state goes Republican.

Pittack says a friend of a friend who works in local politics gave his number to the Harris campaign when they were looking for places to stop. “They didn’t really have a clear statement on who was going to be arriving. They were just saying, Hey, on this day, at this time, is it alright if somebody stops in?” It turned out to be first lady of Minnesota Gwen Walz and actress Connie Britton, who spoke to first-time voters about the importance of Omaha being a “blue dot” in a traditionally red state. Pittack took the opportunity to create a “Blue Dot” ice cream — vanilla ice cream dotted with blue M&M’s — for the event.

Ted and Wally’s

Sometimes, restaurants want no part of a campaign. Often it’s a matter of the restaurant owners not being politically aligned with the politician in question. Or it’s that “they don’t want the controversy, they don’t want to be seen choosing sides,” says the aide. Even if they do support the politician, they want to remain neutral in the eyes of potential customers. Restaurants have also caught heat for hosting politicians that some members of their community don’t support. After the owner of Sammy’s Mexican Grill in Catalina, Arizona appeared on stage at a Trump rally, the restaurant faced calls for boycott. And the McDonald’s where Trump staged his photo-op has been inundated with one-star reviews on Yelp.

But other times, it’s a restaurant’s goal to be a welcoming space for everyone, and to show they’re an important and valued part of the neighborhood, which means being open to anyone who wants to hold an event. “We don’t discriminate. If the Republican party reached out and wanted to host an event here, the option would be there for them. But they haven’t and they likely won’t,” says Mike D’s BBQ owner De Los Santos, who later introduced Harris at a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Pittack says it’s also unlikely Ted and Wally’s will host more conservative politicians. “I think if somebody that didn’t align with our views wanted to show up, we might give them an opportunity, and have our people hang out and see if people can come to an accord,” he says. “But they do their research. I think they would probably be like, ‘We don’t want to be with them.’”

Restaurant visits may be about the story politicians wish to tell about themselves. But as campaigns come and go, the more important story for restaurants is the one they can tell to the politicians visiting. “I think it’s important for [politicians] to see that small businesses are still the backbone of our local communities, and we need all the support we can get, whether it’s eliminating red tape for access to capital, or just highlighting the small businesses that pay living wages in our communities,” says De Los Santos. And if they gain power, hopefully they remember who fed them along the way.

Additional photo illustration credits: Kamala Harris embracing supporter via Bloomberg/Getty Images; all others CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/Getty Images