Goldie workers say they were fired for wearing Palestinian flag pins; CookNSolo apologizes for the tense climate

Workers at Goldie, the restaurant targeted by a pro-Palestinian protest on Sunday, said the political climate at the restaurant had been unravelling for weeks before the high-profile episode, creating a situation for which the company has now apologized.

Two workers at Goldie said they were recently fired for wearing pro-Palestinian flag pins at work. They, along with three other current and former CookNSolo employees, told The Inquirer that the restaurant group had made a political statement on the conflict by hosting an Oct. 12 fundraiser for a nonprofit that provides aid to the Israeli military, misled employees about the nonprofit’s work, and then thrust workers into a politically difficult position for nearly two months.

The protesters’ brief stop at the falafel spot — where demonstrators chanted “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide” — while calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, drew widespread rebuke and accusations of antisemitism from the local Jewish community up to the White House.

Gov. Josh Shapiro visited Goldie on Wednesday to show support for the restaurant that he alleged had been targeted solely due its Israeli and Jewish owners, chef Michael Solomonov and businessman Steve Cook, who operate a fleet of acclaimed eateries as CookNSolo.

“They don’t have a right to come and protest at restaurants simply because it’s owned by a Jew and hold that Jew responsible for Israeli policy,” Shapiro said. “That’s the definition of antisemitism.”

CookNSolo has not issued a public statement about the Sunday episode. But in a letter sent to staff members Wednesday, Solomonov and Cook addressed the fundraiser, the firings, and the simmering tensions within their restaurants since the war broke out.

“Many of our guests have passionate feelings about the current conflict and, knowing that not all of you feel the same way, our approach is to simply avoid discussing politics at work,” the owners wrote in the letter, which The Inquirer obtained.

“We think it’s important to say that our support of Israel is not unqualified. We have plenty of criticisms, particularly in the way that the government has stymied the prospects for Palestinian statehood in recent years,” they said, adding: “It is also important for you to hear directly from us that we have never terminated employees based on their support for Palestine.”

In early October, managers at Goldie learned through the company Slack messaging system that on one day that week, CookNSolo was planning on donating 100% of its sales at four brands to United Hatzalah of Israel, a nonprofit organization providing free emergency medical services across Israel.

The funds, workers were told, would not go toward the military, but toward Red Cross-type efforts in southern Israel, where Hamas killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took 240 more hostage on Oct. 7.

But when Goldie store manager Sophie Hamilton saw an Instagram video of United Hatzalah volunteers packing supplies for Israeli soldiers, she felt misled. “I was horrified,” she said.

In their letter to staff Wednesday, Solomonov and Cook said they were unaware that the nonprofit organization for which it raised more than $100,000 was providing the Israeli army with ambulances and medical supplies. They said they “chose the organization because of its humanitarian mission, which is to provide emergency medical response and supplies to anyone who needs it — Jew or Muslim, Arab or Israeli.”

The CookNSolo duo said United Hatzalah assured the company that all of the funds it raised went for medical treatment.

Ahead of the fundraiser, Hamilton told her boss that she wouldn’t work the event unless CookNSolo committed to also raising money for a Palestinian humanitarian organization. Her boss told her they’d find someone to cover her shift.

Hamilton, who is 23 and had worked at Goldie for more than two years, arrived back at work wearing a Palestine flag pin that she had made.

Two weeks later, management announced a new uniform policy. The only change: “No stickers, pins, patches etc besides those that are Goldie branded.”

After the policy was announced, Hamilton wore her pin to work and was sent home and told to take the following day off. She returned to work without the pin but by then, her coworker, Noah Wood, had begun wearing a Palestine flag pin on his hat. Hamilton didn’t discipline him.

“I didn’t think the policy was fair and it’s not in my values to censor somebody like that,” Hamilton said.

In mid-November, a week after Wood put in four week’s notice that he’d be leaving Goldie and the day after he started wearing the pin, Wood heard that a customer had gestured at him and asked his coworker what his name was. The next day, Wood, 25, got a call from his general manager telling him not to come in. Goldie was calling his notice early.

Hamilton was fired the same day for not enforcing the uniform policy.

Both said they felt the new uniform policy was targeted toward employees wanting to show support for Palestine, noting that coworkers had not been disciplined for wearing Black Lives Matter or LGBTQ rights pins. The policy had a “chilling effect,” Hamitlon said.

A CookNSolo spokesperson said there are no Israeli flags in the group’s restaurants and the company also did not allow employees to wear them as pins over their uniforms.

Another Goldie worker was fired after responding to critiques of the Sunday protest by suggesting, on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that CookNSolo was directly funding genocide by hosting a fundraiser for an organization that donates supplies to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The former employee spoke to the Inquirer on condition of anonymity due to concerns about online harassment and future employment.

United Hatzalah is currently raising money for supplies for Israeli soldiers, but the organization said Wednesday that it is not typical outside of life-and-death situations for both civilians and military personnel.

“In general, UH does not provide assistance to the IDF as they most often don’t need it, unless there are extenuating circumstances, such as times of severe conflict, or scenarios in which IDF personnel are injured and [our] teams are close by and can provide assistance,” said Raphael Poch, the nonprofit’s spokesperson in Jerusalem.

“There is an ongoing working relationship and mutual respect from both agencies, one to the other.”

In the weeks after the war broke out, some employees at CookNSolo restaurants felt that the fundraiser had changed the tenor at work, adding an unwanted political charge to an atmosphere where hospitality was number one.

Tess Rauscher, 25, quit her job as a barista at the Israeli cafe K’Far on Tuesday due to what she described as an uncomfortable political position the company had created.

After the fundraiser, she said some customers tried to discuss the Israel-Hamas war with her and she feared expressing sympathy for Palestinians would jeopardize her job. The Israeli military siege — which has killed more than 16,200 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry — nonetheless caused deep distress for some workers.

During her shift Tuesday, Rauscher walked out when she overheard a manager and another employee criticizing the Goldie protest on the cafe floor. Hosting the fundraiser and subsequently firing employees for speaking out at work felt like a double-standard, she said, and she’d had enough.

“It was these actions, not the identity of the owner, that changed the nature of my job,” she said.

In their letter, Solomonov and Cook apologized for not addressing the concerns sooner with staff.

“Our silence came from a place of not wanting to stir up the deep emotions this conflict inspires,” the duo wrote. “But perhaps we created a void that had the opposite effect. For that, we are sorry.”