Food – American Alliance of Museums

The Best Museum Cafés and Restaurants, According to Museum People

By Joseph O'Neill

Any seasoned museumgoer knows that feeling a few hours into a visit. You came in energized, eager, and attentive, ready to conquer some exhibitions, but now you’re losing steam. The wall texts are running together; you’re breezing past …
2019 Award Winner for Innovation in Museum Education: Vizcaya’s Urban Farming School Program

By Diana Peña

The EdCom Award for Innovation in Museum Education recognizes, encourages, and celebrates new, creative ways of engaging with audiences. Vizcaya Museum and Gardens‘ Urban Farming School Program was lauded by the judges for engaging …
The Mission-Driven Café: When doing the wrong thing is the right thing to do

By Larry Bain

Ask most museum directors, restaurant consultants, and other knowledgeable folks and they will tell you: “Hire an outside food-service company to run your café.” Well, that makes perfect sense—that is what most museums choose to do. The …
Happy Thanksgiving! The Future of Food

By Elizabeth Merritt

Sharing a glimpse of a future of healthy, sustainable, locally sourced food. Enjoy! #Crickets #LIVINFarmsHive.Yours from the (grateful) futur…
Cafeteria Connections: Some food for thought and thought for food

By Jessica B. Harris

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2015 edition of the Museum magazine. We have become a nation of food-obsessed individuals. A glance at television’s offerings reveals that we revel in watching food competitions where …
Food Forward: Eat and drink trends in museums

By Marika Barranco

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2015 edition of the Museum magazine. Museums today are leveraging eating, drinking and tasting in new ways for visitors. Institutions striving to deliver multisensory experiences can find no …
Beyond Four Walls: A conversation with Peter Kim about creating a museum of food and community

By Elizabeth Merritt

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2015 edition of the Museum magazine. Good projects never really end—they flow into the future with all sorts of serendipitous consequences. A lovely ripple effect of the Center for the …
Playing with Food: A Recipe for Success from the Hartford Symphony Orchestra

By Elizabeth Merritt

In 2011, CFM launched Feeding the Spirit, an exploration of the relationships between museums, food & community. That project lives on in a number of ways—most notably, it played a role in the launch of the ongoing Let’s Move Museums …
Kickstarting a New Museum: MOFAD

By Elizabeth Merritt

How can a museum fully integrate food into the whole museum experience—not just the cafeteria or restaurant, but collections, exhibits and programming as well? How would a museum designed, from scratch, around food differ from a …
The Future of Food

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m finishing my edits to a manuscript that grew out of CFM’s Feeding the Spirit Symposium in Pittsburgh last year. The discussion guide we assembled for the subsequent webcast is morphing into an e-book as well as a traditional print …