How restaurants have changed for the worse

ABC 198: On the cost of convenience

I love the way Pete Wells, the NYT food critic, describes the role of restaurants in his last food column for the paper.

We might work silently in our cubicles, rearranging and transmitting zeros and ones. We might walk around with speakers in our ears that played digital music files chosen by an algorithm. We might buy our books and sweaters and toothpaste with a click and wait until they showed up at our door. We might flirt, fight and make up by text. But when we went out to eat, we were people again.

At restaurants, we’re people again—amen! But since Wells started reviewing restaurants for the Times 12 years ago, restaurants have changed. We look at menus on our phones. The camera eats first. Screens mediate our meals. As Wells puts it, restaurants are turning into vending machines with chairs.

The shift in restaurants is part of a broader shift in which we opt for convenience over human connection. It’s easy to be out for hours without ever having to remove the earbuds from our ears. As Wells vacates his post as the New York Times restaurant critic, he poses a question that is perhaps the question of our digital age: what is the cost of all this convenience?

Here’s the piece: I Reviewed Restaurants for 12 Years. They’ve Changed, and Not for the Better.

Warmly,
Simo 

P.S. In honor of this week’s theme, the song of the week is from one of my favorite groups, The Kings of Convenience. The full songs of the week playlist is here.

P.P.S. I just found out that I’ll be giving a TED talk at the TED conference in October! I shared a bit more on Instagram.