Restaurant day (Ravintolapäivä) is here again!
#restaurantday
Restaurant day is easily one of the more fun events in Helsinki. As a tourist, only visiting Helsinki or Finland briefly, one might not fully appreciate the beauty of Restaurant day. After all its just a lot of people offering delicious food (for a fee) across the city. A carnival atmosphere, with colorful people and tasty food, socializing outdoors, seems normal right? Well its not. Not in Helsinki and certainly not in Finland.
This is how things are normally done in Finland.
A note from a restaurant owner to the customers, explaining that all alcoholic drinks must be transported to the terrace by restaurant staff, as walking to the terrace means crossing a 1 meter section of pavement (seen in the background) not officially designated as an area where it is allowed to consume alcoholic drinks.
(thanks to @pursiain for posting this on his twitter feed)
Just so a tourist may understand what Restaurant day is, it is a day when anyone can set up a restaurant for a day. What happens in practice is that the whole city center is full of small huts, kiosks, carts, what ever, even carpets I suppose, that regular people set up in the parks to sell food from to passers by. These mini restaurants are in the hundreds,all over the place all squeezed up next to one another, all smelling like the hundreds of weird and wonderful foods they are pushing.
And this is simply unheard of in Finland. There is no exam, certificate or government approval process required. As far as we know there are no bouncers standing next to each carpet, rather people are allowed to walk freely, and purchase and eat what they like. Not all vendors even speak Finnish, but still there are no official translators required. Believe us. Its crazy town. Complete madness. The vendors do not have to provide any documented plan regarding how or where customers may empty their bladders. There is no government official looking over their shoulder to make sure the vendors have been washing their hands. And everyone pays in cash. Imagine that. Not a single receipt will be visible the whole day. This is very mush against how things are done in Finland.
Someone with a wilder imagination than us might suggest that somewhere in the local or national government a practical joker has set all this up, by creating a 24 hour, city sized loophole, that’s designed to drive our poor civil servants mad. We are not sure what kind of anarchistic movement is behind restaurant day or through which kind of sorcery, extortion or bribery it has been made possible, but we welcome and warmly recommend this wonderful event taking place in the city center on 20.5.2017.
Our last piece of advise is: Go early, start eating at about 10 – 11 am. And try as many foods as you can. pay cash, leave small tips.
Website: http://www.restaurantday.org/en/
Blog: http://blog.restaurantday.org/
