The Midas Files, Scratch Magazine, and More
The Funny Newz: Tech Millionaire Fights Williamsburg Gentrification By Opening $34 Fried Chicken Restaurant
- Details
WILLIAMSBURG, N.Y. — Describing it as both a “personal calling” and “an enormous untapped market,” technology entrepreneur Preston Vale announced Monday that he is combating gentrification in Williamsburg with a new chain of luxury restaurants called Gentrifried Chicken.
Vale, the 39-year-old multimillionaire founder of the lifestyle-data startup Authenticly, said the restaurant will honor Williamsburg’s working-class history by selling fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, and other traditional comfort foods at prices carefully calibrated to ensure that no working-class person can enter the building.
“This neighborhood gave me everything,” said Vale, who moved to Williamsburg from Connecticut four years ago after purchasing a converted pencil factory for $6.8 million. “The culture, the energy, the authenticity—it was all already here when I arrived. I felt a moral responsibility to preserve it, package it, trademark it, and roll it out across twelve markets.”
The restaurant’s signature entrée, the Heritage Three-Piece, includes one thigh, one wing, one “chef-selected ancestral cut,” and a small jar of reclaimed gravy for $34.
For an additional $11, customers can add a side of Displaced Greens, described on the menu as “locally disrupted collards finished with brown sugar, smoked paprika, and neighborhood memory.”
Vale said the concept is designed to solve two urgent problems at once: longtime residents can no longer afford to live in Williamsburg, while newer residents desperately want to feel as though they arrived before it became expensive.
“That’s where Gentrifried Chicken comes in,” Vale explained. “We’re creating a safe, curated environment where affluent customers can experience the emotional texture of a community without encountering anyone who might complicate that experience.”
According to Vale, the restaurant’s exposed brick walls, vintage cash register, mismatched chairs, and framed black-and-white photographs of unidentified neighborhood residents were all selected to evoke “the Williamsburg that existed before people like me discovered Williamsburg.”
One photograph depicts a family standing outside a corner grocery store in 1978. That grocery store is now a Scandinavian dog spa.
“I look at that picture every day,” Vale said. “It reminds me why our truffle biscuits cost $16.”
Giving Back by Taking Reservations
Vale emphasized that Gentrifried Chicken is not merely a restaurant. It is a “community-centered social impact platform” committed to making Williamsburg more affordable.
As part of that mission, the company will donate 0.5% of the proceeds from every $19 bourbon sweet tea to a nonprofit that helps longtime residents relocate to more affordable communities in Pennsylvania.
“We’re not just acknowledging displacement,” Vale said. “We’re providing moving boxes.”
The company will also reserve one table every Tuesday afternoon for “legacy neighborhood stakeholders,” provided they download the Gentrifried app, submit proof of residency dating back to 1995, agree to be photographed for promotional purposes, and purchase at least two entrées.
Vale called the program an important step toward “returning the community to the community.”
When asked why longtime residents could not simply receive discounted meals, Vale said such a policy would undermine the restaurant’s carefully cultivated sense of equality.
“We don’t see income,” he said. “We see customers and people standing outside looking at the menu.”
Authenticity You Can Taste
To ensure that Gentrifried Chicken remains faithful to the community’s roots, Vale assembled what he calls an “authenticity advisory board.”
The board consists of Vale, two venture capital executives, a food influencer from Los Angeles, a brand anthropologist, and a man named Curtis whom Vale met once while waiting for an Uber.
“Curtis told me his grandmother made fried chicken,” Vale said. “The moment he said that, I knew we had found our culinary north star.”
Curtis was later offered a consulting position paying $75 in restaurant credit.
The menu was developed by executive chef Théodore Blanc, whose previous restaurant served a single deconstructed clam inside a heated stone.
Blanc said the secret to Gentrifried Chicken is respecting traditional food while removing anything that might make customers feel heavy, uncomfortable, or insufficiently photographed.
“We have taken the essence of fried chicken and elevated it beyond chicken,” Blanc said. “Our birds are pasture-raised, emotionally supported, lightly massaged, and given the opportunity to review the seasoning blend before processing.”
Each order is served on a miniature aluminum tray lined with a reproduction of a 1986 eviction notice.
Customers may choose from several sauces, including Rent Stabilized Ranch, Hot Honey Equity, and Community Board Buffalo.
The restaurant does not accept cash.
Local Residents Welcome Restaurant’s Commitment to Local Residents
Reaction from longtime Williamsburg residents has been mixed, according to Vale, though he acknowledged that he has not personally spoken to any of them.
“I think there was initially some confusion,” he said. “A few people seemed upset when we replaced the laundromat. But once they understand that the laundromat’s original sign will remain inside the restaurant as décor, I think they’ll feel heard.”
The former owner of the laundromat, 68-year-old Elena Morales, confirmed that she had not been consulted about the project.
“I washed clothes there for thirty-two years,” Morales said. “Now they are selling a biscuit called ‘The Elena’ for twelve dollars.”
Vale said the menu item was intended as a tribute.
“We wanted Elena’s contribution to the neighborhood to live on,” he said. “And now it does, with whipped sorghum butter.”
Morales said she had not received any money from sales of the biscuit.
Vale responded that her compensation was “primarily cultural.”
Expansion Plans Already Underway
Following enthusiastic interest from investors, Gentrifried Chicken plans to open additional locations in Harlem, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Oakland, Portland, and any other neighborhood currently described by real estate agents as “emerging.”
Vale said each location will feature locally inspired menu items and a mural celebrating the people who previously occupied the building.
“We’re creating a scalable model for preserving neighborhood identity,” he said. “The faster a community changes, the more urgently we can monetize what disappeared.”
Authenticly recently closed a $140 million funding round to support the expansion. Investors reportedly valued Gentrifried Chicken at $800 million despite the company having sold only seventeen pieces of chicken.
Vale believes that valuation proves socially conscious capitalism can succeed.
“This really is a win-win,” he said. “We get to make an extraordinary amount of money, and our customers get to tell themselves they helped.”
At press time, Gentrifried Chicken had announced a new affordable housing initiative under which the company will convert four apartments above the restaurant into immersive, 48-hour “working-class Williamsburg experiences” available on Airbnb for $1,900 per night.
Cool Filmz: Disclosure Day Review — Spielberg Looks Back at the Sky
- Details
What did this movie feel like to a guy who writes Pittsburgh-rooted sci-fi thrillers about hidden history, alien power, secret technology, and whether humanity can handle the truth?
Read more: Cool Filmz: Disclosure Day Review — Spielberg Looks Back at the Sky
TechGnosis: NASA Is Learning How to Cook Oxygen Out of Moon Dirt
- Details
There are certain scientific headlines that sound less like news and more like something recovered from a classified briefing folder.
NASA is working on ways to extract oxygen from Moon dirt.
Read more: TechGnosis: NASA Is Learning How to Cook Oxygen Out of Moon Dirt
Bingham's Notebook: Magic Eyes Only—Malcolm's Coin
- Details
MAGIC EYES ONLY
Filed Under: Artifacts, Evium Technology, Majestic Twelve, Psychological Warfare
Related Figures: Dr. Malcolm Kane, Mortimer Vanterpool, Project Sovereign Eagle
First Major Appearance:Call of the Minotaur: The Midas Files — Book Two
Spoiler Advisory: This entry contains lore details connected to Call of the Minotaur.
Read more: Bingham's Notebook: Magic Eyes Only—Malcolm's Coin
The Scratching Post: I Finished Call of the Minotaur. Now What?
- Details
After publishing Call of the Minotaur, I found myself in a strange place.
Read more: The Scratching Post: I Finished Call of the Minotaur. Now What?
Cool Filmz: I am watching Star Wars in Machete Order and It Changes Everything
- Details
I still remember sitting in a dark movie theater in the summer of 1977, clutching my popcorn as the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” appeared on the screen.
Read more: Cool Filmz: I am watching Star Wars in Machete Order and It Changes Everything
Funny Newz: Did Stonehenge Suffer A Y0K Problem?
- Details
SALISBURY, ENGLAND — World-renowned scientist Dr. Frederick Diffendorfer of the Archaeological Institute for the Preservation of Pedantic Study plans to publish a groundbreaking paper this summer on Stonehenge, shortly after resolving what his legal team continues to call “an unfortunate plagiarism misunderstanding.”
The Funny Newz: Space Aliens Buying Up U.S. Beachfront Property — Officials Say Everything Is Fine
- Details
CLEARWATER, FLORIDA — Interstellar aliens are rapidly buying up U.S. real estate and business holdings at what critics are calling an alarming rate, The Funny Newz has learned.
The Funny Newz: Mojave Officials Crack Down on Cheap Alien Monuments
- Details
MOJAVE DESERT, CALIFORNIA — Adrian Covarrubias of the Mojave Desert Resource Conservation and Development Council was rattling across the desert Thursday in a government-leased Jeep Commander when he spotted yet another suspicious alien artifact on the distant horizon.
Read more: The Funny Newz: Mojave Officials Crack Down on Cheap Alien Monuments
The Funny Newz: Chattering Teeth Robot Wins $1 Billion Defense Contract
- Details
BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA — Dr. Emilio Disaronno, a one-armed senior robotics researcher at the Virginia Polytechnic School of Robotics, says the 2024 International Robotics Competition was rigged after a novelty chattering-teeth robot beat his highly advanced killing machine for a major defense contract.
Read more: The Funny Newz: Chattering Teeth Robot Wins $1 Billion Defense Contract
CoolFilmz: Is Die Hard A Christmas Movie? Yes—It's Home Alone for Grownups
- Details
“Ho. Ho. Ho. Now I have a machine gun.”
That is not exactly the kind of line you expect from a cozy holiday classic. It is not Bing Crosby by the fireplace. It is not Jimmy Stewart rediscovering the meaning of life in Bedford Falls. It is Hans Gruber reading a message scrawled on the body of one of his henchmen after John McClane has officially begun ruining the Nakatomi Plaza Christmas party.
Read more: CoolFilmz: Is Die Hard A Christmas Movie? Yes—It's Home Alone for Grownups
Bingham's Notebook: Mortimer Vanterpool’s Powers Explained
- Details
Welcome back to Bingham’s Notebook, where we explore the hidden corners of The Midas Files.
For this entry, I wanted to take a closer look at Mortimer Vanterpool, one of the strangest and most dangerous figures in The Midas Protocol. This may not be the flashiest topic for longtime readers, but clarifying Vanterpool’s abilities helps me understand how he works as a character — and how best to use him as the series continues.
Read more: Bingham's Notebook: Mortimer Vanterpool’s Powers Explained
- Tech Gnosis: Boeing’s Starliner Returned Without Its Crew. What Does That Mean for NASA?
- Cool Filmz: Terminator 2: Judgment Day — An Action Sci-Fi Ace
- Bingham's Notebook: Building the Caves of Baghdad
- The Funny Newz: Space SUVs Here - 2024 "Abductors" Sighted
- Bingham's Notebook: Time Travel in The Midas Files — The Foggy Room Theory
Page 1 of 2
