The New Face Of Waiting

Slowly but surely we will be able to return to our favorite restaurants. We all know how they'll be different. Will the dining out experience be the same?

 Regular contributor Kim Severson posed this question in her article in yesterday's New York Times Food section. As imagined she was ecstatic to eat at Chops, a steakhouse in the Buckhouse section of her native Atlanta. It was a night out, where she got her wedge salad, followed by a rib-eye steak and asparagus. She was a little put off by her waiter, Roberto Velasco wearing a mask. Yet this is the new normal and in a way  maybe it's better. Not just for the virus but for the protection from the usual colds and flus.There's also hand sanitizer prominently displayed. Diners were nine feet away from Ms Severson, which again is good. There's something about being crammed into a restaurant like sardines that can be off putting. You listen to their private conversations. They listen to yours. it kind of diminishes the whole dining out experience with friends. Other Atlanta restaurants are doing the same. Goldbergs, a famed Atlanta eatery that features New York favorites, also takes temperatures of both staff and diners.Another eatery has the servers change their gloves for every table.

Some restaurants are taking it one step further. Patrick O'Connell owner and chef of The Inn at Little Washington in Washington, Virginia has his restaurant filled to half capacity. The other half? Mannequins dressed in 1940's garb. It doesn't give the quaint restaurant an empty look, but still - will mannequins give it a creepy vibe? Especially dressed in fashions from the Second World War? Maybe the whimsy of it matches the menu, which is mostly fun regular and vegetarian amuse-bouches. The restaurant is also decorated in period piece wallpaper with fringed lamps overhead so the mannequins do kind of work. Some eateries are letting diners decide whether their servers should wear masks or not. Is this feasable? The Hillstone Restaurant Group thinks it is  for its' Texas servers only. It also has restaurants in forty-five other states, including New York City, so it does honor what state requirements are. Towns on Long Island, like Oyster Bay will have more outdoor dining , thanks to streets being closed for this.

The new normal for eating out may be the best normal. There will be no germy waiters leaning over you. There will be no overcrowding. Maybe we needed this all along, distanced dining with protected servers and cooks.