Anthony Weiner’s New Career: Restaurateur?
Now that he’s lost his place in politics, Anthony Weiner has taken up… cooking?
The disgraced former Democratic Congressman from New York City is lending his support to Rockaway Restoration Kitchen, a new non-profit restaurant and job training center, according to the Rockaway Times.
The new eatery will serve up healthy nosh and offer food service training for disadvantaged residents of Rockaway, a neighborhood in New York City devastated by Hurricane Sandy.
Down on his luck politically, Weiner is now trying to give a leg up to struggling New Yorkers. The non-profit plans to train up to 150 unemployed residents each year who struggle to keep jobs because of jail time, health problems, or drug abuse, according to its website.
Though Weiner is not publicly associated with the restaurant, he has apparently been working behind the scenes to find the eatery [a space][1] to call home.
The non-profit restaurant is also seeking an executive director, though Weiner does not appear to have taken that job.
Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after it became known that he was sending sexually-explicit photos and messages to younger women online. He later attempted a political comeback in the 2013 New York City mayoral race, but was forced to eat crow after further explicit messages came to light.
The restauranteur streak seems to run in the family — Weiner’s brother owns two restaurants in New York City – though this seems to be Weiner’s first attempt in the food service industry.
But others have tried to yoke his name to food before. An Illinois hot dog company announcedin August 2013 that it would begin selling a new brand of hot dogs called “Carlos Danger Weiners,” named after the alias Weiner used in his online escapades.
No word yet on whether Weiner’s new restaurant will be serving frankfurters.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO