Brooklyn, NY
About John Donohue:
John Donohue is a recovering writer and self-taught artist. A former New Yorker editor and cartoonist, he started drawing restaurants more than a decade ago. John draws by hand in ink on paper, working on-site and from life. He does his drawings in one take, like a jazz record. John doesn't make corrections. There is never any AI. What began as a personal side project has grown into All the Restaurants, a global archive of restaurants and the memories they conjure.
John launched his website in New York City on January 1, 2017, inspired by Jason Polan’s Every Person in New York and James Gulliver Hancock’s All the Buildings in New York. At the time, the city was home to over 24,000 restaurants — more than enough to keep anyone busy. His approach is simple: he visits each one and spend 20 minutes drawing its façade, live and unedited. The plan was mathematically ambitious, but John liked that about it. And even though he will never finish drawing every restaurant in the city (openings and closings alone made that impossible), he keeps going. John has learned that the process is what matters.
Since then, John's drawings have taken him to Paris, London, Napa, Philadelphia, Montreal, Las Vegas, and beyond. This has evolved into a lifelong project. And it's one he plans to continue for as long as he can hold a pen.
