Dave Arnold, a budding food writer and inventor, starts with a question: "Why isn't there a Smithsonian-scale museum of food and drink?" He begins laying out his vision for the Museum of Food and Drink.

Dave holds an inaugural get-the-ball-rolling fundraiser to start the Museum of Food and Drink. Wylie Dufresne, Christina Tosi, David Chang, Mark Ladner, and Carlo Mirarchi, among others, pitch in.

Peter J. Kim quits his job as an attorney and becomes MOFAD's first executive director. Emma Boast volunteers to join the effort. They generate support for the museum, recruiting some of the country's most distinguished chefs.

The museum launches a Kickstarter campaign to fund its first exhibition, BOOM! The Puffing Gun and the Rise of Cereal. The campaign raises over $100,000 from more than 830 backers – the most ever raised by a museum on Kickstarter.

MOFAD begins touring a giant 1930s-era cereal puffing gun around the city. Over 10,000 people come to see live demonstrations of the machine, discover the history of cereal, and taste freshly puffed grains. BOOM! draws accolades from The New Yorker and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications.

MOFAD is a museum on wheels. In addition to BOOM!, the museum holds MOFAD Roundtable debates around New York City, taking on controversial issues such as the soda ban, GMOs, and the future of meat. The museum's community of supporters grows.

MOFAD gains the support of its first major sponsor, Infiniti. The museum opens MOFAD Lab, a 5,000-square-foot design studio and gallery space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. MOFAD debuts the exhibition Flavor: Making It and Faking It, which features never-before-seen tasting and smelling technology. The New York Times hails Flavor as “not just hands-on, but nostrils-on and tongue-on.”

MOFAD launches Chow: Making the Chinese American Restaurant, which celebrates the birth and evolution of Chinese American restaurants, tracing their nearly 170-year history and sparking conversation about food culture, immigration, and what it means to be American. MOFAD also partners with Eater to launch MOFAD City, a series of digital exhibitions that invites users to explore the food cultures of NYC, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and San Francisco.

MOFAD Lab becomes a thriving hub of activity, reaching hundreds of local NYC schools and producing over 200 events and programs. Chow is extended multiple times due to the exhibition’s timely and relevant nature. MOFAD produces multiple pop-up exhibitions, including Feasts & Festivals and Knights of the Raj NYC. In 2018, MOFAD begins working with Dr. Jessica B. Harris on African/American: Making the Nation’s Table.

MOFAD plans to open African/American: Making the Nation’s Table in April 2020, but the exhibition is postponed due to COVID-19. To continue its mission of celebrating food culture, MOFAD develops several new online programming series enabling participants to virtually break bread together while adhering to social distancing guidelines.

In January 2021, MOFAD welcomed Nazli Parvizi to the team as our new President. During this year, MOFAD continued to operate virtually, launching three new online experiences: Mapping the Nation’s Table, The Legacy Quilt Project, and Virtual Reality Theater. In September, MOFAD reopened in-person public programs through partnerships with The Ace Hotel in Brooklyn and Essex Market.