It’s been nearly four years since the world shut down for Covid.  I remember enjoying our last restaurant meal in 2020 before the shutdown around March 10.  My wife, Katie, and I joined another couple for Indian food in Durham and, concerned with news reports, asked to sit as far from other tables as possible.  We also refused water glasses touched by the waiter and drank from our own bottle instead.  I guess we seemed nutty in that moment.  A week later, we seemed clairvoyant.  Now, four years later, who knows?  

     In fits and starts, we resumed dining out in mid-2021, then on and off for another year or so, following the vicissitudes of viral surges.  With mild weather in North Carolina, we took full advantage of outdoor dining options.  Now, in 2024, a return to indoor dining is relatively complete.  However, the experience is changed in numerous ways.

     First, the prices.  Somehow, breakfast now costs what lunch used to cost; lunch costs what dinner used to cost; and, dinner costs what a week’s groceries used to cost.  And tips?  We formerly paid fifteen-eighteen percent.  Now, we feel like cheapskates if we don’t leave twenty.  And twenty-five-thirty percent is not unheard of if the server presents a compelling personal story, e.g., “I’m saving up money to resume my courses in environmental science, or dog grooming, or early education at Chatham County Community College.”  

     The other way to earn a thirty percent tip from us is to provide “great service,” defined as remembering to leave out the onions when clearly told “no onions” in the salad and/or, cheerily agreeing AND REMEMBERING to bring an iced tea that is half sweetened and half unsweetened and, who doesn’t roll his or her eyes when we refuse a straw.  All the foregoing requests are achieved in our experience, about fifty percent of the time.  I’m sure it used to be better!

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     Another change in our restaurant experience is our relationship with fellow diners.  Formerly, we paid little attention to the tables around us.  Now, we at least subconsciously gravitate towards the emptier regions of a restaurant and feel claustrophobic if all the surrounding tables are occupied.  If a person at a nearby table coughs, we used to barely notice.  Now, one cough earns a glance, a second a glare and a third, a downright death-stare, followed by a feverish (no pun intended) survey of the room to see if there’s a safe table to move to.

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     How awful it must be to own a restaurant!  Even before the pandemic we felt like jinxes to half the restaurants we enjoyed.  Few survived our enthusiastic patronage.  Half the remaining ones disappeared between 2020 and the present.  New ones come and go before we can even try them.  Or, like a brand new Popeyes around the corner, which we thought we’d enjoy as a fast-food alternative to the politically conservative-inclined Chick-Fil-A, they turn out to be so terrible in terms of food, service, and atmosphere, that the latter retains our business.  (Good waffle fries and clean and friendly service outweigh social concepts like marriage equality, right?  I’d like to say “no,” but….)

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          With all those concerns, it’s a wonder we ever brave the anxiety.  Yet, it’s one of life’s pleasures to occasionally eat somewhere DIFFERENT and to each be able to sample whatever appeals to us individually and not to have to prepare and clean up.  It’s to be hoped the inflationary challenges relent and our now-baked-in leeriness of other diners and servers subsides.  After all, what American isn’t feeling better and better about the wisdom and judgment of fellow citizens these days as we round into election season?  

     Oops.