Ravintolapäivä, edible urbanism and civic opportunism

How street food culture tracks and shapes an evolving city

These screen grabs of an iPhone app are interesting for a number of reasons. One reason is seemingly mundane, and concerns the procurement of such things, yet could unlock possibilities nonetheless.

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.)

Today, though, the sun was shining, the streets were full, and that frustration was long forgotten, given the explosion of invention on offer. While each of the little black shapes on the map above purported to represent a “restaurant”, imagine “restaurant” in the…