Restaurants will never be the same.
 | By Adrian J. Rivera Editing Fellow, Opinion |
Over the last year and change, food delivery services saved me from subsisting solely off Bolognese sauce, the one dish I know how to make well. At one point, I was having Pad See Ew delivered three times a week. |
Eventually, friends joined me at home for delivered food. On my second pandemic birthday, a friend and I ordered ricotta pizza. Another friend, visiting from New Jersey, and I caught up over sushi when I was house-sitting in the Upper East Side. |
I was satisfied with the food I had delivered. I was more than satisfied with the conversations I had over that delivered food. More hermetically inclined than I'd like to admit, I had food and I had community around food. So why did I miss going out to restaurants so much? |
Inherent to our desire to go back to restaurants, I think, is the desire to be waited on, to be served. It's hard to admit. And it's even harder, apparently, to modulate this desire in light of the reality that restaurants are facing a glut of customers even as they deal with a dearth of employees willing to serve those customers. |
That's why when Peter Hoffman sent a piece to us that called on restaurant owners — and restaurant patrons — to use the current moment as an opportunity to reframe the way we think about dining out, I knew we needed to publish it. |
It made me think back to March 13, 2020, when I had dinner with two friends inside a restaurant. I did not know then that I would not eat inside another restaurant until May of this year. |
If I had known, maybe I would have splurged and ordered an appetizer — dessert, even. I would have savored the roasted pork and pineapple arepa I ordered, I would have closed my eyes and paid meaningful attention to the food I was eating. Maybe I would have left a bigger tip for the waitress, for the host, for the bartender. |
But because I thought I'd be back to a restaurant in the next week, in the next month, at worst, I wolfed down my food out of anxiety over the uncertain future. I didn't think to order anything other than what I needed. And I left the tip I was expected to leave. |
I hope Hoffman's essay inspires you, when you do dine out, to try something new, to savor and to be generous. I hope it inspires you to accord the restaurant employees, the food and the time you're spending at a meal with the respect each and all deserve. |
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