Ravintolapäivä, Restaurant Day, edible urbanism and civic opportunism

Softening Helsinki’s hard shell via a street food uprising

This screen grab of an iPhone app is interesting for a number of reasons. One reason is seemingly mundane, and concerns the procurement of such things, yet could unlock possibilities nonetheless. (This piece was originally published at cityofsound.com on 20th May 2012.)

The other reason is genuinely inspirational, potentially transformational even, and this post describes why, through both journal entry and essay.

The screen grab is from the Ravintolapäivä iPhone app. Ravintolapäivä is “Restaurant Day”: each of the map’s little green or black shields represents a pop-up restaurant of sorts. After starting in Helsinki a year ago, Ravintolapäivä’s role is to suggest “a food carnival when anyone can open a restaurant for a day”.

Which it is, although this doesn’t quite describe the genesis of the event, which came out of frustration with the effort required to set up a restaurant in Helsinki, of the kind that is open for more than a single day. (More on that below.)