In a 52 second TikTok, @george.pnw opens in the front seat of a car with on screen text that reads “POV: Ordering food off Facebook Marketplace for an ENTIRE week.” “Welcome to week 5 of boycotting restaurants in Seattle and only ordering from locals on Facebook Marketplace,” he says. His caption adds a note that the boycott is “just to be dramatic” and tells viewers to keep supporting restaurants, so the series is a food experiment, not a protest.
The first order is the biggest swing. “I felt bold and placed an order for seafood boil,” he says, and he was nervous because he had bought from the same seller before and called that earlier soul food order “busted.” The frames show a hand taking a foil tray through the car window, then a close shot of the boil. “I was surprised to find not one but TWO lobster tails,” he says, along with “so many huge shrimps and crab legs.” The sauce wins him over: “I was going crazy for their Cajun house sauce.”
The second stop is the one with the heart. “Next I took another gamble and ordered some food from” a pair of sellers he describes as high school freshmen. “I was more worried about this one,” he says, “but these freshmen in high school were so sweet and totally knew what they were doing.” On screen, the two teenagers shake his hand through the car window. He adds that the sellers told him orders have been slow lately, which surprised him because “everything, especially the cheesecake, was so good.” Back in the car, the frames show foil trays of macaroni and cheese and a pie with a dark crumb topping.
The last stop is barbecue. “Had to make one more quick stop for legit Texas BBQ,” he says, and he describes the sellers as a man and his niece. They carry out a tray, and the following shots show a rack of glazed ribs and cups of baked macaroni and cheese. He says he has been “so many times” and can “assure you everything is so insane.” He closes with a request: “Support these locals if you can and stay tuned for week six.”
Food bought from a home seller raises its own questions, and the Washington State Department of Agriculture answers part of one on its cottage food permit guide. The permit covers low risk items such as breads, cookies, jams and candy, and it does not allow meat, poultry, fish or shellfish, dairy products or baked goods that need refrigeration, including cakes and pastries with cream cheese fillings. Sales under that permit are capped at $35,000 per calendar year, and operators who reach the cap can apply for a food processor license or a local health jurisdiction permit.
The video does not say which permits, if any, the sellers hold, or where the food was cooked, so none of that can be assumed from the clip. Anyone trying the same thing can ask a seller about the food’s source and storage, and eat the food soon after pickup.
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