Pok Pok’s Andy Ricker Announces Shut Down of All His Restaurants

Award winning local chef Andy Ricker announced on Instagram this morning that he will be shuttering all of his restaurants until further notice—even for take-out and delivery—out of fear he can no longer keep a safe working distance for the workers in his many kitchens, and out of remorse following the coronavirus-related death of fellow chef (and Top Chef Masters star) Floyd Cardoz. From Ricker’s Instagram:

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Friends in Portland, New York, Los Angeles, Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, everywhere. We need to stay at home, all of us. We can keep on working to save our industry but we should not be exposing our workers to the dangers of this virus. RIP @floydcardoz 🙏🙏🙏

A post shared by Andy Ricker (@pawkhrua) on Mar 25, 2020 at 9:05am PDT

Ricker has also extended his request of a shut down to all of his cohorts in the industry:

Friends in Portland, New York, Los Angeles, Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, everywhere. We need to stay at home, all of us. We can keep on working to save our industry but we should not be… https://t.co/7WLI0VMs9v
— Andy Ricker (@pawkhrua) March 25, 2020

He closes by saying simply, “We gotta do this.” More updates on this and other restaurant news as it’s made available.