These
photos of a restaurant where everyone has HIV and only employs
HIV-positive Chefs in Toronto has gone viral on social media, and has
been met with mixed reactions.
Toronto is home to a new, first-of-its-kind pop-up — the world’s only
restaurant where every piece of food is made by someone with HIV.
Organizers say the impetus was a recent poll that found that the thought
of dining with somebody who’s HIV-positive still paralyzes them with
fear.
The survey by Casey House, Canada’s only hospital dedicated to people
living with HIV/AIDS, found that nearly half of Canadians wouldn’t eat a
meal prepared by someone with the disease, even though health experts
say the infection can’t be transmitted that way.
To combat the stigma around food prep, Casey House decided it was time to pull a bold stunt.
The pop-up, called June’s Eatery after Casey House’s co-founder June
Callwood, launched this week. It advertised two four-course dinners made
by 14 HIV-positive chefs for $125 — one yesterday, the other today.
Both of them sold out.
Organizers told The Guardian that they even welcome “negative
coverage,” though, as the “entire point of the pop-up” is “exposing the
ignorance and blame around HIV and AIDS.”
They
did their best to test people, too — organizers say they mailed jars of
soup prepared by the HIV-positive team to newsrooms “across Canada.”
It seems they didn’t really care what became of that soup in a box,
as long as it challenged media to “examine their own beliefs” before
writing about the event.