Fed opened for Sunday dinner

Molli Voraotsady, the chef, was up late Saturday night chopping the mushrooms and making the marinade for the pork filling. She’d told the line cooks four hours ago that the siu mai needed to be prepped. Two dozen people were lined up outside, waiting for the restaurant to open.

There was no time, or space, to crash out. At 5, as incoming customers poured in, Voraotsady started shaping the dumplings in the open kitchen in front of the bar, while chatting with regulars.

Though she looked calm, she would later call that service “one of our hardest.”

So So Fed, a Lao-Chinese-American spot that’s one of Atlanta’s buzziest places to eat, has no choice but to pull things together on the fly. The restaurant only exists two nights a week.

Pop-up eateries have become more common across the country since the pandemic, thanks to rising costs associated with opening and operating a restaurant. Generally, they look like a chef temporarily taking over a brewery’s unused kitchen or maybe a dinner service held in someone’s apartment.