I like restaurants. Cheap Asian joints. Open air French Brasseries. Fine dining. I love them all.
I even like learning about restaurants. Like many who enjoy cooking, I devoured Anthony Bourdain’s debut effort, Kitchen Confidential, then read his cook book from Les Halles. Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares is a guilty pleasure of mine.
But it seems I am increasingly alone. In 2024, THREE QUARTERS of all restaurant meals in the US were not consumed on premises. There has always been drive-thru, but the appetite for Food Delivery services like DoorDash is literally insatiable. This is not Covid -Era. This is last year.
I order on one of these platforms maybe once every 18 months, and I usually regret it. Expensive, slow, sometimes cold. It’s just so rarely worth it. Then there are the people who are ordering $70 steaks and coq-au-vins to their doorstep. Now THAT is complete madness.
With a tighter budget, decent culinary skills, fairly average options, and a young child, I don’t go to many restaurants these days. But perhaps I should, because at this rate, they might all be going the way of the Dodo.
Article for those interested: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/10/food-delivery-america/684700/
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