Israeli restaurant chain closes after getting hit – Business News
Shouk, a plant-based kosher street-food chain in Washington, D.C., completely shut down its closing places this month partly resulting from protests and boycotts from anti-Israel activists.
Once featured by the Food Network and The Washington Post for its “Shouk Burger,” the chain had 5 shops within the area. The closures come after two years of protests and boycotts over the battle in Gaza crippled the business.
Local activist group DC for Palestine led a boycott marketing campaign that claimed the restaurant’s falafel and different menu objects “appropriated” Palestinian delicacies and that the house owners have been “complicit in Israeli apartheid.”
Co-owner Dennis Friedman, a Jewish American who opened the primary Shouk location over a decade in the past with Israeli co-owner Ran Nussbacher, rejected these accusations. He stated the mission of Shouk was to deliver people collectively.
“I don’t agree with that because the intention of Shouk was pure, and good,” Friedman instructed Fox News Digital. “When my business partner came to me, it wasn’t ‘let’s make Israeli food.’ He wanted to make plant-based food that reminded him of his childhood and home. That was the core of where we started to build the recipes. For the most part, Shouk has been promoted as Mediterranean, plant-based, and Middle Eastern. Very rarely have we claimed anything else. That’s why Shouk is written in both Arabic and Hebrew in all the stores — because we are a place to bring everyone together.”
Shouk, a plant-based kosher street-food chain, completely shut down its closing places in Washington, D.C. partly resulting from anti-Israel protesters. X/@Shoukfood
Co-owner Dennis Friedman (left), a Jewish American who opened the primary location with Israeli co-owner Ran Nussbacher, stated their intentions have been “pure, and good,” and so they weren’t attempting to applicable Palestinian delicacies. The Washington Post by way of Getty Images
He known as Shouk “a gathering place for people of all races, colors, and creeds to come together to enjoy food,” that was good for patrons and the planet.
He stated their Georgetown location was the primary to be focused, citing its proximity to Georgetown University and what he described as a “heavy Muslim population” within the space.
While he stated business was booming earlier than Oct. 7, the protests shortly began tanking their income.
Friedman known as Shouk “a gathering place for people of all races, colors, and creeds to come together to enjoy food,” that was good for patrons and the planet. LightRocket by way of Getty Images
Protesters in assist of Palestinians collect close to the US Capitol on October 04, in Washington, DC. Getty Images
Friedman stated they reached out to native business teams and representatives and employed security exterior their shops, calling the expertise of being harassed by protesters over the previous two years “scary and unnerving.”
“We had everything from little children coming into the store during a busy lunch screaming ‘Free Palestine’ while their parents videoed for social media,” he stated. He stated the protests have been half of a “very coordinated” and profitable “effort by the BDS to hurt Shouk.”
“There were posters of dead baby Palestinian children on the windows or on our seating outside. You know, it ranged from, you know, vandalism to intimidation to maybe things that we don’t even know,” he added.
“We had everything from little children coming into the store during a busy lunch screaming ‘Free Palestine’ while their parents videoed for social media,” Friedman stated, a profitable “effort by the BDS to hurt Shouk.” The Washington Post by way of Getty Images
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Friedman mirrored on the chain’s 12-year run, calling it an “amazing experience” he couldn’t have imagined in his “wildest dreams.”
He stated Shouk was “near and dear to his heart” and that he and Nussbacher tried their best to take care of their workers during the closures.
“Most of our staff have been with us since we opened,” he stated. “Our turnover was very low because we ran the company ethically, we ran it well, and we ran it fairly. And so our staff became part of our family, and they didn’t want to leave.”
The chain closed its final places simply days earlier than a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was reached.
DC for Palestine celebrated the closures as a “BDS win” in an Instagram post, writing:
“Shouk WAS one of the main targets of our “APARTHEID? I DON’T BUY IT” shopper boycott initiative! Much of what they served was Palestinian food that they culturally appropriated as “Israeli street food”. Additionally, they imported Israeli ingredients for his or her dishes. TODAY WE ARE HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT, AS OF OCTOBER 1, 2025, SHOUK HAS CLOSED ITS DOOR, PERMANENTLY!”
The group urged supporters to proceed boycotting U.S. and native companies that sell Israeli merchandise.
