cooknsolo worker testimonials: laid-off workers speak out

On July 14, 2026, the Inquirer reported on the closing of CookNSolo restaurants Goldie and Federal Donuts. As many commenters noticed, the Inquirer quoted co-owner and boss Steve Cook at length, but didn’t think to ask workers for their point of view! This is par for the course for the Inquirer’s food journalism, which consistently repeats restaurant owners’ talking points without even thinking to fact check.

Boycott CookNSolo has been contacted by multiple laid-off workers who want to share their experience of working for CookNSolo. And guess what? Their stories directly contradict some of CookNSolo’s claims. While Cook claimed that the closures were unrelated to the boycott, employees report that their bosses were obviously troubled by it and its effect on the restaurants’ bottom lines. Workers also dispute Cook’s claims that CookNSolo helps employees find new jobs. In fact, employees are being screwed over after years of working in subpar conditions.

One employee cites a past instance of management lying to the Inquirer by claiming that laid-off workers were relocated to new jobs - this was simply untrue. If the Inquirer bothered to talk to workers, they could have fact-checked the bosses’ fictitious claims. Is the Inquirer doing reporting or PR for bosses?

While the Inquirer might not be interested in what the workers have to say, we know the people of Philly want to hear their voices. Here they are!

July 13, 2026

Worker #1 (Goldie store manager)

“We just found out this past Friday about the closures, and while they were a little fuzzy on exact timeline, they said they’re essentially planning to have the other 3 (Whole Foods, Penn, and midtown) locations closed by the end of the month. The midtown (12 & Sansom) location’s last day is going to be the 24th of the month. Very similar story with Federal Donuts next door, last week it was a month notice until they closed their doors, they just found out on Friday that it was in fact yesterday. Steve was the one doing the majority of the talking and didn’t actively reference the boycott, but did essentially say that the finances were just nowhere where they needed to be in order to sustain business.

I admittedly don’t have much personal gossip- both especially Steve are very hands off and don’t tend to spend much time in the restaurants, other than Mike having a tendency to have people ‘on call’ calling first thing in the morning on a pretty regular basis, waking members of upper management up from their sleep and expecting an immediate response.... But it has been badddd financially – like every store struggling to hit 2k, sometimes barely even breaking 1k sales on a very regular basis, for quite some time. Compared to last year sales are down ~25 percent overall for my store specifically.

It has been pretty crazy to see! Yeah the pervasive attitude in the company at large, with a few exceptions, is very much in favor of the boycotts, the protests that have taken place etc. There’s a bigggg amount of sharing free food/items, a lot more employee discounts going around than should be. Lol. There’s a definite culture of keep your views to yourself if you want to keep your job that you gain a sense of pretty quickly when you work here, unfortunately. We talk a lot amongst ourselves about how crazy it is that 95% of this company is so like minded but it continues to feel like an unreachable topic, even with management that you know feels the same as you.

They’re better at trying to be more implicit about it after everything blew up with the way they fired so many people back in October 22, baking things like “no non Goldie accessories on you” into the uniform policy which was a direct response to people wearing Palestine pins as you might already know. I truly had no clue what I was getting into when I got into this job, it’s been unreal the past few years.”

July 14, 2026:

Worker #2 (Federal Donuts worker)

“I used to work at the Federal Donuts on Wolf Street before it closed, I left before they closed it but my old co-workers told me when they closed that location they laid everyone off without any warning and lied to the Inquirer about the fact that they relocated everyone from that location. Those guys are awful people.

It’s just miserable working there. The administrative team for Federal Donuts doesn’t know what they’re doing. There’s no room for any kind of growth, I was there for over a year with not even a whisper about any sort of raise. One of my coworkers worked there for two years and I think was only making like $14 an hour. They constantly made us train the people who were going to the new locations they were opening. They were awful about food safety practices and there were a ton of times that the store would be open and there wasn’t someone who had a food safety certification in the building all day.

I also heard stories about the Manager of the Gather Food Hall location sexually harassing some of the staff and upper management not doing anything about it.”

July 14, 2026:

Worker #3 (Goldie store manager)

“I worked at Goldie for five years. Store manager for four. I ran the Fishtown location which also had our commissary kitchen attached. The ladies there make the food for all of the locations and other restaurants. Some of them have been employees for 10 years. They started cuts with commissary. Adding work to Goldie by giving us their tasks. Slowly decreasing their workload until they had to cut 5ish people and hours dramatically. Then my store closed because the event space, Lilah, took over. They gave me one months notice and told me they could relocate my entire team but had no position available for me. I asked Steve cook directly for one months severance. Even just one extra paycheck and he said they’ve “never really done that. So they’re not going to start now.” The next day Mike spoke to me personally acting oblivious and asked if he could help me in any way. So I cussed him out and walked away. Never saw him again. Thank god.

After the fundraiser for Israel that they forced us to participate in we had to deal with customers coming in and praising us as if we personally helped Israel. We had to take frequent breaks just to compose ourselves because it was so heartbreaking to not be able to speak up for Palestine. Many of us had tried to find work for the same pay but in food service it doesn’t really matter your experience. You always start from the bottom. So we had to bite our tongues at all the racist bull the customers brought forward. I heard about a week ago about the rest of the closures and heard that cooknsolo isn’t directly trying to help Goldie employees find new positions or jobs. I believe the head manager [redacted] is actively trying to help employees find work but is doing that on her own time. Mike and Steve and the upper management have no hand in helping or empathy. Sales definitely declined the past few years with my store barely making 1200$ the last few months. The boycotts are def the cause. Mike and Steve and the other head people were always complaining about it and we frequently had to clean graffiti off the buildings.

I know they’re worried and it’s only a matter of time til the rest come tumbling down.”

July 10, 2026

Worker #4 (Goldie worker)

“My coworkers are wonderful, but management besides one person is horrendous. We have one person in upper management who would raise concerns over treatment of employees with Mike and Steve, and then that manager was no longer invited to partake in meetings because she would speak up for us.

We’ve worked through broken heaters in the winter and broken ACs in the summer and most recently an absolutely terrible fruit fly infestation at the midtown store.

At one point our AC was broken for upwards of 2 months starting last August. Upper management told my store manager repeatedly that HVAC repair was called and supposed to come for a month, and that was all a lie because they were waiting for the heating unit to get worse first before they called so they could fix both at once.

I haven’t noticed them taking tips from my paycheck but I also wouldn’t be surprised. A coworker of mine who now works at [redacted] told me a few days ago that they adjusted his paycheck to pay him for [less hours than he worked].

And yes all the Federals are closing as well. They told them they’d be open till the end of the month and then yesterday told everyone that all the Federals would be closing on Sunday.

As far as we know, all the Goldies will be open until the end of July, with Harper being the only one to remain open.

I haven’t been given a reason and I don’t think anyone else has. I used to work at Fishtown Goldie and when that closed we weren’t given a reason, just told that we were going to close by the end of the year (which was 3 weeks away at that point). I know that most of my coworkers do think the boycott is the reason, because sales have fallen significantly even since last year.

No severance. A handful of people are being kept on, but the majority is just being told goodbye and good luck. I know that when one years-long salaried employee asked about severance, she was told “we don’t do that.”

Everyone is pissed. I think that we all felt that things were bad, many of us have found new jobs in the past month because we were worried about the longevity of the business and quite frankly, tired of an ever increasing workload with 0 pay increase whatsoever.

Business has been very bad. Most days, most stores are barely breaking 1,000 dollars and very slightly over.

I personally don’t have any inside knowledge or gossip about them besides one high level employee being called while she was out of town (at a funeral) by Mike, and Mike being pissed at her for not answering right away. He said “when I call, you answer” which is psychotic.

Honestly I’ve hated working here for a while, it’s crazy the cognitive dissonance we practice because of the owner being a Zionist mouthpiece. Like being talked to on a daily basis as if I also support genocide is disheartening to say the least.

I’m just glad to see that the boycott is working in my opinion. Thank you, also! It does suck but it’s also a blessing to be free from them. We’re all gonna wind up better off.”

Workers have been trying to tell their story for years!

This isn’t the first time CooknSolo workers have spoken out! In 2023 several workers spoke to the press about firings around support for Palestine and to correct the record on protests. You can watch former Goldie manager Sophie Hamilton talking to Middle East Eye about getting fired after objecting to a fundraiser, wearing a Palestine pin and refusing to discipline another worker for doing the same.

The worker fired alongside her told MEE this:

“We've had LGBTQ flags up in the store. They might still be up. And one of the other locations had Black Lives Matter signage, so it wasn't as if it was an entirely politically neutral work environment. You must remember Sophie and I didn't say anything. We didn't argue with customers. We weren't posting online. We were just wearing Palestine patches and pins and this seemed to make a customer uncomfortable, and this was enough for termination."

Another worker, June, who was working the day the protest passed Goldie and was later fired for a tweet they made in support also spoke to MEE. Here’s what they had to say:

“I remember thinking it was a big crowd, given it had been raining… No one inside was bothered. I didn't feel unsafe. There were orthodox Jews taking part in the protest. We even had a customer come into the business… The protesters had assembled outside Goldie because the restaurant owner had sent money to an aid organisation that supported the Israeli military. They had come because two employees at Goldie were fired for expressing support for Palestine… If you believe calling for the end of a genocide is antisemitic, you need to reassess how you define Judaism… They didn't come to the restaurant simply because it was Jewish-owned. If that was the case, they would've gone to hundreds of restaurants across the city… If I could educate more people on how this company feels about Palestinians being killed, I'd gladly do it in a heartbeat. I will always advocate and support anyone who advocates for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine."