JTA — CookNSolo, the Philadelphia restaurant group co-founded by the Israeli-American celebrity chef Michael Solomonov, announced this week that it would close six locations across two of its fast-casual chains.

In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, owner Steve Cook blamed the closures on inflation, declining lunch traffic and an oversaturated market for fast-casual dining.

But pro-Palestinian activists who have spent more than two years targeting CookNSolo since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel quickly offered a different claim.

“Constantly disappointed in the inquirers sneaky portrayal of key topics. Everybody knows that they’re closing the stores because the boycott is working and yet nobody’s going to mention in this article the boycott??? we’re gonna pretend it’s a shifting landscape in the restaurant business?????,” one user wrote in the comments section of the Inquirer’s Instagram post about the closures.

“It’s not a lack of demand for fast-casual restaurants, it’s a lack of desire to support zionist establishments,” wrote another, which received hundreds of likes.

The reaction from commenters reflects the sustained campaign against CookNSolo since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, when Solomonov and Cook announced the group was donating $100,000 to the Israeli emergency medical organization United........

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