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I feel the demand to sit down and be waited on to have a unique experience is still very much there, latent, ready to explode.

I would do just about anything right now to have a weekly date night away from kids. To be waited on hand and foot while a culinary expert prepares me an amazing meal.

That said, for boring “meal replacement”-where you pile the kids in the car to go out so you don’t have to cook- there’s less of a reason to use a restaurant. Delivery apps are so much more ubiquitous. Meal kit deliveries are much more a staple of every home.

> I would do just about anything right now to have a weekly date night away from kids. To be waited on hand and foot while a culinary expert prepares me an amazing meal.

Preface: I'm a former chef and cook, in addition to my foray in finech, with a background and a short stint as a private chef while traveling in Europe during the off season: why don't you just hire a private chef?

I'm wondering if their will be a push for an app that functions much like task rabbit model for chefs, wherein you could fill your day with 'gigs' as in 'Breakfasts at the Jones' 8-11am,' 'Lunch and Dinner at the Wang's 1-10pm' kind of format.

California also has relaxed laws on using private residences functioning as kitchens for business (Cottage Food laws, that varies by County) but this format could be done again and not have the pitfalls of other attempts that were easy to take down and could even be done at scale. Some restaurants on Pearl Street Mall in Boulder are just refurbished homes and this model can function with the right incentives.

I personally retired for the last time, with no desire to ever go back at this point, but I would gladly consult to see something like this happen since so many BOH and FOH workers will likely never be able to go back to work as the Industry is completely wrecked in the US.

As you said, you want to go back, and the truth is we cooks masochistically like our role in that model, but where we really all think we thrive in best is utilizing our creative skills in a smaller scale where the entire menu is your own and you can see direct feedback from a smaller crowd/family.

Edit: Damn auto correct!

> why don't you just hire a private chef?

If they're like me, the reason they're not going to restaurants now is because they don't want to risk getting Covid-19 (my state is doing well enough they started allowing indoor dining again, for example, but I'm still only having takeout delivered).

Inviting a stranger into your home isn't any better. I haven't even let my own parents inside my home since this started.

> I feel the demand to sit down and be waited on to have a unique experience is still very much there, latent, ready to explode.

It disappoints me that I'm not able to get any enjoyment out of this sort of experience. The very idea of being waited on hand and foot makes me uncomfortable, but I suspect I'm in the minority on that one.

It all about setting expectations. I typically do this based on the price and atmosphere of the restaurant.

If I'm paying $50+ for a steak and had to change out of my graphic T-shirt to walk in, I expect that I'm paying for someone to ensure it's a great experience and they're ready for it (plus a healthy tip, of course.)

If I'm paying $13.99 for a burger and a beer, I just need them to bring me my food and refill my drink every once in a while.

I can’t believe there are many people who want to be “waited on” by servants. I just want someone to cook and somewhere to sit and hangout with friends without needing to cleanup.
So you want servants, but just described slightly differently...
Hiring a chef and a butler is a far cry from having servants.
All of those people are servants, it’s just kinda rude to say it that way. Saying “I don’t want servants, I just want people to cook for me and clean up after me” is really just saying “I want cooking and cleaning servants, but I don’t want to use that word”.
They generally do not use that word in the restaurant industry.

Instead they use “server”.

Of course. Because the word servant had all sorts of negative connotations. Nobody wants to be called a servant, and there’s all sorts of judgements to be made about people who call others servants (or even just make implications in that direction). Like in the parent comment I was originally replying to for instance, which could essentially be rephrased to “why would anybody want to have servants? I myself prefer to have servants”. On the surface the comment as it’s written appears to be a criticism of having unreasonable demands. But I’d say it’s just a criticism around phrasing used to project a sense of moral superiority.
It's literally in the definition of "butler".

Butler:

1 : a manservant having charge of the wines and liquors. 2 : the chief male servant of a household who has charge of other employees, receives guests, directs the serving of meals, and performs various personal services.

I think the distinction is usually drawn at (a) payment is exchanged for services, and (b) the person providing the service is free to leave the role at their discretion (possibly with a contractual requirement to provide advance notice).
"Will you require buttling today, sir?"

"No, you can go manserve elsewhere for now."

> Hiring a chef and a butler is a far cry from having servants.

I was a private chef, and in my situation (off-season Historical European Hotel) no, it really isn't... what experience do you speak from to make such a statement?

Culinary work, after you strip all the romanticism, is at it's core slave labour.

Slave labour? I’ve said millions of times that I love exaggeration, but even I think that’s taking it a bit far.

Were you paid? Could you leave the job if you wanted?

Then it’s not slave labour.

> Were you paid? Could you leave the job if you wanted?

I've been screwed out of payment by kitchen/hotel owners after providing my service, yes... which is why I retired for the 2nd time after losing 3 months of payment in my last gig in Italy after accepting to continue while the owner had the chance to recover investment over the Summer and cover expenses, one guy there (a barman) was on his 6th month of working without pay as he couldn't find work in 2013 anywhere at his age (50s) but could take home uneaten leftovers off of gusests plates or extra we had at the end of service to his elderly parents who he looked after. It was heartbreaking. It's just some of the perils of working in a precarious profession in a failing economy and as an undocumented worked (me) while doing my apprenticeship. You accept it and you move on, but you never forget.

I soon learned to do roofing, re-framing and other misc refurbishment jobs on homes after that Fall and swore to myself I'd never come back while I finished my apprenticeship in Ag--then I got the bug and came back in 2018 after quitting IBM.

Also, I have friends that are chef(s) and owner of their kitchens that were shut down during COVID, and for them the anser is also: No.

The State government told them to shut down and the State/Federal governments left them out in the cold after complying with the outdoor restrictions and buying lots of expensive equipment and re-hiring staff after doing things by themselves during the take out option only operation. They sunk their, and much of their extended family's life savings into building those businesses and some didn't qualify for PPP and bet it all once more just to cover the previous loans.

You only think it's 'exaggeration' because you likely are afforded a great deal of security from your position in tech where you don't even understand just how lucky/privileged you are to be able to work from home and still earn a (bloated) salary and not have the incompetence and corruption of the State make you shut down your operation with little to no fall back plan after having sunk $10,000+ of dollars in loans to continue to operate and still be shut down.

I could go on, but the answer is that not being paid for your labour is normal, we have things called 'stages' that equate to working interviews in which you are not paid is the 'norm.' In Europe (where I worked for a significant part of my career) and Asia it's typical to stage for weeks, even months before to show you can be relied on to do basic tasks and show up on time and not endanger yourself or others.

Is this legal? Probably not, but its the norm.

I've worked in both Industrys (culinary and tech) and even tried to merge the two together, founded my own startup and then worked at a Multinational Corp and was on later stage round interviews at SpaceX when COVID hit.

And all of those Industries, for me at least, have their dark sides that people never want to talk about except for me for some reason, so I stand by my claim about culinary despite people in that Industry thinking I have had this very romantic and idealic career when I tell them what and where I've worked over the years.

My passion for food (and what it can do to nourish and change individuals and communities) is the only thing that let me believe being physically and verbally abused was acceptable, get paid nothing, work long (sometimes unpaid) hours when I was running my own kitchen and often while injured (from farming in the AM) just to make ends meet and be able to practice my Art was worth it. I'm glad to say I've hit a peak I will never reach again and I'm old enough and mature enough to be able to bow out with my head held high and fall back on other skill sets with some basic re-training.

So, again... it's only exaggeration to you because chances are you never worked a day in the Industry and aren't aware of how common those stories are.

What a grotesque remark.
> What a grotesque remark.

You want the truth, or the BS story you get from the banal Food Networks or Top Chefs of the World that lets you delude yourself that its ok to not tip much or at all when you go out in what is horrible Industry attached to an even worse business model? And BOH (cooks, dishwashers) doesn't get any of that mind you.

Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential was, at times clearly embellished for attention grabbing purposes to sell books, a very accurate depiction of the Industry. Which is why he became the patron saint of sorts to the Culinary World, despite being an admittedly mediocre chef.

There was a time I really wished everyone had spent a summer working in a kitchen to gain perspective on what that thing really is, now it's very unlikely to occur after COVID.

Still, it's pretty eye opening.

So does anybody who pays someone to mow the lawn or clean the gutters.
It seems you've redefined "waited on" to be some weird thing.

For most people it means precisely what you said, ie. someone to cook, bring you drinks and food, and no cleanup.

That’s my definition of being “waited on”
All i've got pent-up demand for is some ribs. Nowhere in delivering distance of me does them.
If you have an outdoor grill you can cook them yourself pretty easily. May need to get creative if you're looking for a smokier flavor, but I cooked a rack of ribs from the grocery store for the first time this past summer. 2.5-3 hours later they came out pretty fantastic.
Yeah, ribs are one of the easiest thing to have a craving for. Could probably get good success mixing liquid smoke into the barbeque sauce.
liquid smoke is magical!
Restaurants in Florida have been open for dine-in service since September.
In the decade before Covid hit, the net number of new restaurants and bars in New York (City) alone increased by more than 7,000, to 23,650

During which decade the population of New York city increased by 2%, while the number of restaurants increased 30%. So a shakeout was due.

The author is correct, though, that with Grubhub, Yelp, and Groupon all extracting money from the restaurant industry, it's become much tougher.

42% even (7k on top of the 23k-7k a decode ago)!
By and large restaurants are terrible at providing healthy, nutritious, sustaining food. If the pandemic helps promote more cooking at home and more nutritious eating, the failure of restaurants may have a silver lining.
True, though this isn't the goal of a restaurant. A restaurant's goal is to make money by providing food, service, and an atmosphere that people enjoy. Minivans are terrible airplanes and even worse golf clubs. But they're great at being minivans.
I wouldn't bet on home cooks on average preparing healthier meals than restaurants.
I think you would be shocked at how much salt and fat go into dishes at fine restaurants.

The average home cook would likely recoil at putting those amounts into their own food

This may be a bit of a cherry-picked example but I had a tasty side dish at a nice restaurant so I thought I would try making it at home so I looked up the recipe

The first one that came up was this:

https://www.tastingtable.com/cook/recipes/Pommes-Aligot-Reci...

It contains 1.5 lbs of cheese, a cup of heavy cream, and makes... 4 servings

I didn’t make it.

Salt and fat aren't necessarily unhealthy. Some people are genetically sensitive to sodium for high blood pressure but for most of us it's fine. And people would generally be better off getting more of their calories from fat than simple carbohydrates.

The real issue with a lot of restaurant food is simply huge portion sizes that tempt diners to overeat.

This is a bit misleading, not all fat is created equal. Saturated fat in particular has been clearly shown to correlate with heart disease, and there’s a ton of saturated fat in butter, cream, red meat, cheese, etc. So much so that if you’re trying to lower your cholesterol it’s basically impossible to order something satisfactory at a typical restaurant.
Some observational studies have shown a slight correlation between subject reported saturated fat intake and heart disease. However those studies had multiple confounding factors (healthy subject bias), the effect size was small, and no one has ever shown clear causation. I'm not recommending consuming extra saturated fat but don't overstate the strength of the scientific evidence.

The real issue with heart disease is more about atherogenic lipoproteins than cholesterol, and genetics are a more important risk factor than diet.

https://peterattiamd.com/tomdayspring6/

The saturated fat - heart disease connection has been questioned quite a bit over the last decade or two. It’s unclear at this point whether it even exists.
A recent one for me was alfredo, I've always had either the dry stove top packets or bought it from a restaurant. I was simultaneously amazed at how easy it was to cook and how packed with different types of fat it is, and this is in addition to the carbs it's normally bundled with.

It makes perfect sense though, restaurants rarely provide nutrition information so their sole performance metric is taste.

But does the average home cook make pommes aligot from a recipe, or do they grab mashed potato flakes in a box at their local supermarket, and add a couple of hot dogs and call it a meal?
When we make mashed potatoes, we slice potatoes in chunks, add them to an instant pot with salt and water, cook it for 8 minutes, and after it's done we drain the water, add a little milk and butter (not a lot) and mash it all up. Tastes great, and doesn't take all that much effort, really.
2lb potatoes to 1.5lb of cheese? Not to even count butter or cream...

Sauces are fun too. Like Hollandaise and Bearnaise or mayo and such... Eggs and butter/oil...

Some of the relative healthiness of home cooking is just inexperience. As I've cooked more, I've also gotten a lot more shameless about throwing in a huge hunk of butter or salting liberally.
Restaurants have been brought to their knees at precisely the moment when the nourishment of the country is most in peril: since the start of the pandemic the number of Americans facing food insecurity has climbed from thirty-seven million to fifty-four million.

A reminder that one of the reasons we don't have a lot of outright starvation in the US is because we have so many businesses that serve food -- restaurants, grocery stores, etc. We never think of businesses as being in the business of "solving world hunger." We think non-profit organizations do that for poor starving nations or something, but historically Persia, India and Greece all revered the honey bee as a mental model for doing business -- as opposed to, say, going a-viking and simply stealing everything you could from neighboring nations -- a cornerstone of creating civilization and fostering peace and prosperity.

In the decade before Covid hit, the net number of new restaurants and bars in New York alone increased by more than 7,000, to 23,650, twice the rate at which businesses citywide expanded.

I wonder if that is related to the demographic trend of people marrying later (if at all), having kids later (if at all) and having fewer of them and other demographic trends that together add up to a great many more households with just one to three people.

A lot of current American culture and expectations and ideas about how things supposedly are supposed to work are rooted in post World War II culture that caused the Baby Boom. "The Boys" came home and they encouraged women to quit jobs to give them up for the men and there was money in the bank and military benefits and a vast latent demand for housing and the means to finally meet it, which gave birth to the modern American suburb and widespread prosperity of a sort the world has never seen before.

This means a lot of our cultural ideas are rooted in a stay-at-home mom doing the cooking and cleaning. There is a lot of stuff that implicitly assumes this model and fails to work when this is not our reality and the truth is this is not our reality for most Americans today.

For people already scoffing at the idea of wanting a servant to serve you your meal, this is a standard expectation in American culture, we just usually call her "mom" and gloss over the fact that she is a de facto servant.

One of my many neglected project ideas is to somehow write about how to keep yourself adequately fed under challenging conditions and one of the things that drives that interest is the frequency with which I see complaints online that people are either going broke and getting fat ordering takeout or going broke and getting fat eating microwave meals or similar. Cooking for just one person takes almost as much time and effort as cooking for a whole family and doesn't come with built-in conversation, so eating alone doesn't simultaneously help everyone in the family bond emotionally, keep up with family news, etc. At best it just keeps you fed and that's it.

There are benefits to having one person do the cooking, like it means they can get good at it while other people put time and effort into other things. It provides efficiency of time use at the societal level to have some people cook and some people not bother to learn.

I think we need to do more takeout and we need to revive a practice that was alive and well when I was child but seems to have died out: The walk-up window for takeout. Now we have drive-throughs and no walk-up windows and this de facto assumes everyone has a car and it penalizes people who don't. (No, they often will not serve a pedestrian at a drive-through.)

For the pandemic, I really like Little Caesar's Pizza Portal and I don't see why we can't do something similar for more eateries. You order online, get a code, walk in and punch in the code, get your food and leave.

One of the hidden benefits is that one person can pay with their debit card and another can pick up because you don't sign for it. At most places, if you order online, you need to be prepared to sign the receipt which is a problem if one person is paying and another is picking up.

I also would love to see an updated version of the "food court" -- an outdoor socially distanced seating area that serves multiple local eateries with walk-up windows and/or food "portals." Being waited on by waitstaff is of relatively little interest to me personally, but being able to get food conveniently without having to cook it or do the cleanup is quite valuable to me and was when I was homeless.

> There are benefits to having one person do the cooking, like it means they can get good at it while other people put time and effort into other things.

As someone who is doing vast majority of the cooking in the house for the past couple of years, since my wife has been more stressed out (work and otherwise), it is really nice when someone else in the house can help out even a little bit with the meal, even if it's as simple as slicing meat or dicing vegetables.

Yes, I've gotten pretty decent at cooking, but having some sort of a break, or not having to put quite so much effort into it sometimes is nice. Usually saves time too.

Great piece. Font-weight needs to be cranked, though.