Massive fallout from posts by the owner of Bar Brava, Dan Rice: the sushi pop-up by Baaska closed down, and Rice today has apologized and said he’s closing the natural wine bar to “reflect, rest, and coordinate our next residency.”
So, what happened? On Nov. 22, Rice posted in support of President Donald Trump’s initiative to send immigration agents into the Twin Cities on his private Instagram, citing what he called his experience with Somalis.
“Today is the beginning of the end for Somali gang violence in Minneapolis,” he posted on his @watchdangram account. So surprising to see this take from a Natural Wine owner in North Minneapolis, I screenshot and saved it.
In another IG story he wrote: “To be clear, ‘East African male’ violence and crime has been an issue since l was a college student. Many gopher alumni can relate—you get an email from the school nearly every day about a mugging or a rape by the same people described above. However nothing has been done to systematically remove the root cause of this crime. Until now—with the full attention of our President. I love Minneapolis and I want to see this town grow and be successful.”
Apparently, the escalation of enforcement by ICE over the past couple weeks proved too much for the team running a pop-up sushi restaurant inside Bar Brava.
This weekend, Sushi By Baaska’s sous chef, Chef Ernest Robledo, on his IG account @screaming_sushi posted this take. “As a citizen of color, especially in these trying times, I need to put this open letter out there. Sushi By Baaska will no longer fulfill our residency at Bar Brava, Dan (owner) has expressed openly his beliefs that do not align with those of my own nor the Sushi By Baaska team. Our decision to sever ties was not a hard one to make, we will not be complicit and we don’t condone bigotry nor any forms of prejudice.”
It took until today for the owner to speak, as Rice wrote on the official Bar Brava Instagram account that he was apologizing: “I want to formally apologize for my comments regarding the Somali community. In seeking to point out criminal behavior by a small group of individuals, I made generalizations, assumptions, and implied things about an entire community that were unfair, harmful, and divisive. The consequences of my comments impacted not only me, but also my employees, friends, and family. I am deeply sorry and take full responsibility for my comments.”
Bar Brava was a national finalist for the James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine Program last year. Will it recover? Will another pop-up want to be linked to Rice? Unclear. He added today, “An immense amount of personal growth has come from this. My hope is that repentance can be meaningful in an increasingly divisive world.”
UPDATE: Baaska Tegshbileg, owner/chef of Sushi by Baaska also posted to his IG stories this week: “We don’t support any form of discrimination. Therefore, we’ve decided to end our residency at Bar Brava, we stand with our community especially in this difficult time.”
