[3] The menu focused on one nation at a time, rotating every three to five months, and featured related educational programming, such as lunch hour with scholars, film screenings, and trivia nights.

The kitchen was supported by profits from the sale of food, Waffle Shop: A Reality Show, the Benter Foundation, the Center for the Arts in Society, and the Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University.

According to Rubin, "Conflict Kitchen reformats the preexisting social relations of food and economic exchange to engage the general public in discussions about countries, cultures and people that they might know little about outside of the polarizing rhetoric of U.S. politics and the narrow lens of media headlines.

The affair was set off by a public event, hosted by Conflict Kitchen with Nael Aldweib, a local doctor and Palestinian from the West Bank, and Ken Boas, chair of the board of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA and professor of literature at the University of Pittsburgh.

[18] As reported by The Jewish Chronicle, Gregg Roman, director of the Federation's Community Relations Council asked to be included in the panel, but Conflict Kitchen declined the offer.

As The Jewish Chronicle described the restaurant serving Palestinian food as "The discussion Tuesday afternoon billed as focusing on 'current events in Palestine,' ... quickly shifting to wholesale condemnation of Israel.

The link to national political figures prompted a media frenzy, with headlines that one commentator described as "sensationalist in tone" ("Anti-Israel restaurant receives funding from John Kerry's wife's foundation").

"[23] The widespread media attention increased the restaurant's profile and drew new customers, including Jezebel's writer at The Kitchenette, who announced that he would visit for the first time as a show of support.