A digital outlet executed a layoff that’s likely to be felt by restaurants across Texas and the U.S.: Eater, the national media brand that covers food and dining, laid off 15 employees on August 7, including Texas editor Courtney Smith.
According to the employees’ Vox Media Union, the layoff was part of a major restructuring of the 20-year-old brand.
Some of those let go were part of Eater’s cities network, which provides local coverage of 23 cities across the U.S. including bureaus in Dallas, Houston, and Austin.
One staffer speculated off the record that the layoffs would erode city-specific coverage, a continuation of the paring-back on local stories that’s been ongoing at Eater since 2021. “Basically, all of Eater cities are toast,” the staffer said.
However, Vox Communications VP Lauren Starke said in an email that “Eater is committed to operating all current Eater sites. In order to reorient the business around our long-term strategy, we had to make the difficult decision to eliminate roles yesterday.”
Others let go included longtimers Ashok Selvam, regional editor for the Midwest, who’d been with Eater since 2014; and Amy McCarthy, a reporter based in Dallas who’d been with the company for a decade, first as editor of Eater Dallas and Houston, then as a national reporter covering dining and pop culture.
In Texas, Eater recently appointed a Texas regional editor, H. Drew Blackburn, on a temporary basis. In an email, Blackburn said he was still employed, but wasn’t sure what the future held.
Publication of stories on the city sites halted at about 11:45 am on August 7, although two stories were added on the New York and San Francisco sites later in the day.
The possible demise of city-specific coverage gives restaurants one less platform and further erodes the role of traditional online media in restaurant reporting, placing an increasing emphasis on unchecked social media sites such as Instagram and TikTok.
Eater was founded in 2005, then acquired by Vox Media in 2013. They started as an aggregating site, summarizing restaurant and dining news by linking to other sites’ stories, sometimes breaking news itself. In recent years, their emphasis moved towards lists centered on their trademark maps, but with occasional photo-driven features such as the recent “5 dishes at Norman’s Japanese Grill,” a new restaurant in Dallas.
Dallas, Austin, and Houston all boast a variety of dining coverage, but Eater’s status as a national organization made them desirable for regional restaurants angling for a national profile.
The layoffs took place one day after Eater announced a celebration of its 20-year anniversary “at the center of the food world” by throwing their “biggest event ever”: Eater Off Menu, an “immersive, food-focused bash” taking place in New York on September 20.
