Moon Rabbit, the popular Vietnamese restaurant at The Wharf's InterContinental Hotel, has received sky-high praise since it opened in 2020.
But at the end of service on Monday, Moon Rabbit closed its doors for good.
Two years ago, Esquire named it one of the 40 best new restaurants in the country and said "Chef Kevin Tien’s dishes are an exploration not only of Vietnamese cuisine but of maximum craveability." Readers of Food & Wine voted it one of the 10 best restaurants in the United States in April.
Just days ago, on May 19 and 20, Tien and his restaurant were headliners at The Wharf's "Everything, Everyone, All the Food at Once Fest." The two-day festival celebrated Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month "by spotlighting acclaimed culinary talent from near and far, diverse flavors and AAPI traditions through two palate-pleasing events," The Wharf's webpage for the event proclaimed.
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By Tuesday afternoon, the restaurant's website was already down, with the URL moonrabbitdc.com leading to nothing but a WordPress password portal.
So why the sudden closure?
The InterContinental on The Wharf, the luxury hotel that Moon Rabbit called home, made the decision "amidst a union organizing campaign at the hotel and Moon Rabbit," according to a Monday news release from UNITE HERE Local 25, a hospitality workers' union that represents more than 6,500 employees in the DMV.
The union said in that same release that management for the InterContinental only told employees at the restaurant about the closure on Monday, the day before doors shut. Moon Rabbit "will be replaced by an alternative concept that will only serve breakfast."
"With the backing of a substantial majority of workers at the InterContinental on the Wharf and Moon Rabbit, the union filed for a petition for a union election on May 1 -- three weeks before the hotel decided to close Moon Rabbit, throwing the workers' livelihoods into question," the union said. "83% of workers in the bargaining unit have signed union authorization cards."
The Metro Washington Council, AFL-CIO, a coalition of almost 200 local affiliate unions in D.C. and Maryland, reiterated the upcoming union vote as the reason for Moon Rabbit closing in a statement.
"Denying workers the ability to freely choose to be represented by a union is a drastic business choice," Metro Washington Council President Dyana Forester said in part in the statement.
"The restaurant should see this as an opportunity rather than an obstacle," the statement said. "The District made outsized investment in the Wharf, and we want businesses that reflect D.C. values. I encourage the mayor and D.C. Council to consider what actions are appropriate in this situation."
The Metro Washington Council release also amplified UNITE HERE Local 25's calls for a boycott on non-unionized hotels operated by InterContinental Hotels Group Hotels & Resorts, the company that owns the hotel that housed Moon Rabbit.
IHG operates the InterContinental on The Wharf, the Willard InterContinental, the Kimpton Hotel George and the Hotel Indigo Alexandria.
IHG released a joint statement with Tien on Monday, saying the company and the chef are simply moving on and away.
"The vision behind Moon Rabbit at InterContinental Washington D.C. -- The Wharf was to open new doors for diners, to educate them and to excite them, which we absolutely have accomplished," the statement said in part. "IHG Hotels & Resorts and Chef Kevin Tien will part ways as of Monday, May 22. IHG wishes Chef Tien much continued success in his future endeavors."
Asked by News4 whether the InterContinental had any comment in response to allegations that the restaurant closure was tied to a unionization campaign, a spokesperson said, "The hotel's approach to our parting of ways was in no way impacted by the union's ongoing efforts to unionize the hotel."
A statement posted to the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington account on Instagram was similarly opaque about the reasons for Moon Rabbit's closure.
"It is always an unfortunate day when one of our local restaurants closes and even more so when it is a much loved and well respected restaurant that has brought the region tremendous accolades," the statement from Shawn Townsend, president and CEO of RAMW, reads.
"Right now the landscape is more challenging for restaurant operators than it has ever been before, and while we don't know all the details, there were clearly many challenges being navigated here," the statement continued. "Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington (RAMW) always supports the rights of workers to have representation and a voice, just as the association supports the rights of small businesses to make decisions concerning the future of their businesses so long as those decisions are made in accordance with law."
A post to Moon Rabbit's Instagram account on Monday highlighted how unexpected the closure was.
"With summer right around the corner, you'll want to order the Hau's Hau // half dozen oysters, nuoc mam me, papaya granita. #MoonRabbitDC," the caption read. "Make your reservation at the link in bio."
Comments on the post show confused patrons of the restaurant wondering what happened, hours after the post went up.
"Is today your last service? There's no announcement about you closing," said one user.
"Seeing a post about y’all closing…and then seeing this…is confusing but sure?"
The decision left employees at the hotel distressed, according to the union's news release.
"It's devastating," one server, Michael Cruz, said in the news release from UNITE HERE Local 25. "I've been organizing the union at Moon Rabbit because I wanted stability, and I wanted to spend my career working here with Chef Kevin. For management to spit that back in our faces is a real betrayal of our work and the incredible restaurant we've built."
The hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies given to the Wharf by the D.C. Council added to workers' indignation over the restaurant's sudden closure, according to the union news release.
The D.C. Council gave developers Hoffman & Associates, Madison Marquette and Carr Companies nearly $300 million to build up the Wharf, with the promise of adding jobs to the District, according to UNITE HERE Local 25.
That $300 million in public subsidy money was given to the entire Wharf project, not just the InterContinental Hotel or Moon Rabbit.
The D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, an organization dedicated to analyzing tax and budget data in the District, published a report in 2017 about the $300 million, which included "public land and cash subsidies through D.C.’s Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and PILOT economic development subsidy programs."
The report claimed that the developers of the Wharf and economic leaders in the District did not do enough to make sure jobs created at the Wharf would include benefits and fair wages.
Ed Lazere is the former executive director of DCPFI, who oversaw the planning and development of that 2017 report.
He told News4 said the District could have tied the millions of dollars in subsidies to something like a project labor agreement, which would have required developers to contract with a range of unions and thereby create jobs with higher wages and benefits. There could also have been provisions for labor peace agreements, which essentially says developers have to stay out of the way if workers decide to form a union.
But that didn't happen.
"Without such requirements, developers usually compete for projects by aggressively keeping labor costs low," a news release about the report from 2017 said. "Most construction workers at the Wharf were not represented by a union, and many of its non-union construction jobs pay less than $15 an hour, or less than $30,000 a year, often with minimal benefits. The hotel, restaurant and retail jobs at the newly opened Wharf also are likely to be non-union and have similarly low pay and benefits."
Lazere said the Moon Rabbit closure brings up a lot of frustrations around the Wharf's development, and around similar projects in the District.
"A lot of people, we know that gentrification is happening throughout the city, and it's a powerful economic force," Lazere said. "But it's such a shame when that gentrification, that increasing economic divide, is actually being subsidized by the city. And it didn't have to be."
In the joint statement with The InterContinental, Tien said he was grateful for the two-and-a-half years with the restaurant and for the partnership with the hotel.
"I ultimately wanted to offer Moon Rabbit as a standalone concept and look forward to continuing to share Moon Rabbit with diners," Tien said.
The Washington Post, citing an anonymous source that was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, reported on Tuesday that "as part of the deal to walk away from the restaurant, Tien will keep the intellectual property around Moon Rabbit, including the name and his recipes."
News4 has not yet independently verified who has the rights to Moon Rabbit and the recipes.
News4 has also reached out to Tien for comment. He has not yet responded.
UNITE HERE Local 25 picketed outside the InterContinental hotel on Wednesday afternoon, and on Thursday morning from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., according to a post on their Twitter.
