A group of New Yorkers hosted what appeared to be a lavish Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of a subway car in the city Thursday.
Footage of the unsual dinner somewhere in midtown Manhattan (of course) made the rounds on social media. Five people attended, sitting in metal chairs around a table with a patterned tablecloth and covered with dishes of food inside a subway car, which was captured on a video posted on TikTok. One guest at the end of the table carved the turkey as others sat around and ate what appeared to be potatoes, corn and other Thanksgiving staples.
Salivating fellow commuters looked on, with some taking photographs and videos of the spectacle.
The TikTok user who posted the video captioned it: “When your NYC [apartment] isn’t big enough to host a Thanksgiving dinner.”
Turns out, the Thanksgiving dinner was actually being filmed as an advertisement for “Sweetlife NYC,” a dispensary. A spokesperson for the company told The Independent they handed out leftovers to MTA workers and others nearby once they were done filming.
The company’s TikTok account, “@body_388,” later posted an ad using footage from the dinner.
This isn’t the first time a Thanksgiving feast has been served on a New York City subway.
Last November, organizers set up a table of food in a train car and passed out plates to hungry commuters. Similarly, in 2022 New York City restaurant Bea’s Kitchen supplied full Thanksgiving meals that were handed out to commuters, CBS News reported.
This week’s video, viewed over 300,000 times on TikTok, garnered mixed reactions.
“This has to be performance art,” one user said.
“The one where they had Thanksgiving on the subway,” another user commented, referencing the hit sitcom “Friends,” which takes place in the Big Apple.
“Legit question: are there actually no rules on the NYC subway?” another posted.
Eating isn’t mentioned in the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s “Rules of Conduct and Fines.” The table had a lit candle in the center, which the MTA does not allow, though the Sweetlife NYC spokesperson told The Independent the flame was artifical.
Other TikTok users had questions for the organizers.
“What happens when it becomes the last stop and they have to leave but they haven’t finished the food?” one user asked
“How does one achieve this?” another wondered.
