The Loneliness of the Modern Restaurant

Gourmet takeout stands and small-plate bistros are replacing Friday-night hangout joints. Can we save the bar and grill?

Photo credit: Thomas Litagen on Unsplash.

My local newspaper recently ran a story about a new pizza place, which is replacing the old pizza place that closed last year. The old pizza place, Tony’s, first opened in 1937. The shelf behind the bar resembled the outside of a Swiss Chalet; the cabinets looked like windows, and a shingled roof hovered over the rows of liquor bottles. The main dining room had a terrible mural of Italian piazzas and canals populated by gondoliers and several naked ladies—all rendered in the childlike style of the retirement-era George W. Bush. Everything about the decor was wrong, but the vibe was just right.

My husband and I started going to Tony's shortly after we moved to our city, and it became a regular Friday-night hangout spot. We didn't know many people in town yet, but we knew Donna, who always remembered that we ordered a mushroom-and-olive pie with a Caesar salad. We didn't know the other customers, but we recognized some of their faces—the woman who worked at the bank, the guy who checked us in at the gym. Everyone seemed to be in the same good Friday-night mood. The hard work is over! Let the weekend begin!

Our friends in Brooklyn informed us that our city was getting hip. It was written up in The New York Times and Vogue as a destination art town, with stories on the latest farm-to-table restaurant or artisanal cocktail lounge. We liked these places too, or most of them, but what we loved about Tony’s was that it definitely wasn’t hip. At Tony’s there were families and retirees—men in New York Giants hoodies, women in pastel sweater sets. On nights that we sat at the bar, we usually ended up talking to whoever was next to us; one night it was the head of the city’s Democratic party; another night the guy who fixed the roof of our house.

The new place will hold three different businesses: an upscale slice joint, a high-end “provisions” market, and a wine bar and small-plate bistro. So far, only the slice place has opened. The pictures in the newspaper show gleaming white subway tiles, clean lines, and just the right pops of cherry-red and royal-blue. I know the pizza is delicious—I've enjoyed many pies from a sister store in a nearby town—and I’m glad the space won’t be occupied by a Dunkin’ Donuts, Chase Bank or TurboTax.

But looking at those pictures fills me with sadness. The street-facing barstools are nestled under narrow countertop ledges, with just enough room to quickly down a solo slice and a soda. This is not a place to linger; this is a place to get your (delicious!) food and go.

I’m being wildly unfair here. The new place is supposed to be a take-out joint. And the small-plate wine bar will be a sit-down restaurant. I’m sure the décor will be tasteful and the food outstanding; maybe we’ll go for my birthday. But we won’t become regulars, and I’m quite sure we won’t be getting into impromptu conversations with local contractors and politicians.  

But I’m not really talking about the new place. I’m talking about the demise of a particular kind of restaurant. In England, they’re called locals, cozy pubs where you can enjoy a pint in a comfy chair and stay as long as you like. Here in the United States, they’re bar and grills, diners, cafes, even ice-cream shops. They’re the places that welcome you—regardless of your age, or weight, or level of stylishness—to enjoy a tasty, reasonably priced meal and hang out. They’re the places where people become regulars.

Tony’s is one of many now-shuttered restaurants we loved. At the Anchor, we would get burgers or wings and talk to the bartender, Paul, about his artwork—the trippy paintings of human-like cats that hung on the walls. The Anchor closed after the owner put the building up for sale last year. At Outdated, I often spent an afternoon in an easy chair with my laptop and a coffee, though I couldn’t go if I had a tight deadline—since I’d invariably see someone I knew and get to talking. The Outdated also closed last year. At the Liberty Public House, we chatted with bartenders over craft brews and fish and chips; that space is now occupied by a restaurant that describes itself as a “late 1800s bohemian-inspired craft cocktail bar/elevated farm-to-table eatery.”

I understand why restaurants had to change. I get why the bistro has supplanted the bar and grill, and why small plates have replaced generous portions.

I understand why the more affordable places have traded in comfy sofas and padded booths for wooden benches, and why barstools no longer have backs. I know that if I’m not spending a lot of money, I can’t expect to sit back while my server tells me about the specials; I’ll need to stand in line and take a number.

Restaurants have always operated with perilously thin profit margins, and since the pandemic, the economics of this business are even tougher. Owners are facing labor shortages. Staff are facing spiking rents. Everyone is facing higher food costs. Restaurant staff can’t afford for me to linger—definitely not for the price of a mushroom-and-olive pie and a couple glasses of supermarket chardonnay. I understand that I must always press at least 20% on the Square app tip screen, even if I never make eye contact with a staff member. I’m grateful that people still have the gumption to open restaurants at all. If I have to stand in line for a $16 glass of rosé, so be it.

But I don’t think we should shrug our shoulders and say, “That’s capitalism.” When the people who create the places we love can’t afford to keep them running, then the problem is bigger than any particular obstacle an individual owner may face.

Restaurants aren’t very profitable, but they are very valuable. The problem is our system doesn’t distinguish between these two things. You can make a lot of money running an Airbnb; you’ll also make it harder for your neighbors to find an affordable place to live. The fossil-fuel industry reaps great profits; their products are also making life more dangerous and miserable for nearly everyone on the planet.

Restaurants are more than just businesses. They’re places where friends meet and families gather. At your local, you might bump into your elderly neighbors, your kid’s teacher, or the friend of a friend you had a nice conversation with six months ago. You might see a local band, play team trivia, or discover a local artist. One night at another now-shuttered hangout, The Beverly, we bumped into a neighbor who mentioned that his band was about to start playing. We were ready to leave but stayed to be polite. The band was amazing, and when I ran into our neighbor a few days later I gushed about how much we enjoyed it. A takeout joint or elevated farm-to-table bistro isn’t going to give you that.

Remember the first time you looked at Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks? If you’re over 30, the painting probably provoked feelings of desolation and loneliness. But look at it now:  

Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks is one of the world's most iconic portraits of loneliness, but by today’s standards, the scene looks quite sociable. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Two of the four people are making eye contact, and everyone is facing one another. By today’s standards, the scene is quite sociable.

Photo credit: Abi Ismail on Unsplash.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared a loneliness epidemic in the United States, releasing an advisory saying that about half of U.S. adults experience loneliness. The report stresses that loneliness is a serious health concern, associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. Social disconnection has a mortality impact equivalent to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Lack of social connection, the report says, harms schools, workplaces and civic organizations.

Shortly after the Surgeon General’s report was released, Senator Chris Murphy introduced the National Strategy for Social Connection Act, which is designed to provide systemic solutions to the loneliness crisis. Murthy and Murphy want to make our cities and towns less lonely through community policies and infrastructure. They’re calling for more parks, public transportation and nature trails. They want to support volunteer organizations, religious groups and libraries.

Yes to all of that. Bring on the bike paths and the community meetings and the citywide book groups. But also: Can I get some fries with those vegetables?

You don’t need a blue-ribbon panel to figure out how to bring people together—you just need the owner of a really great bar and grill. Restaurant and café owners already know how to create welcoming spaces that make people feel relaxed and sociable. So why not deploy that knowledge in the interest of the nation’s mental and physical health? The U.S. government pays billions of dollars a year to subsidize soybeans, semiconductors and, infuriatingly, fossil fuels. Why not pubs and cafes?

“Let’s perform a thought experiment,” the late David Graeber wrote in May 2020. “What if we conceived ‘the economy’ not as a market but as the way we human beings take care of one another, by providing each other with material needs and the basis for satisfying, meaningful lives.”

Graeber was referring to one of the most important lessons of the pandemic: the difference between what is valuable and what is lucrative. In the lockdown days, the low-paid workers who delivered food and stocked supermarket shelves were understood to be extremely valuable—essential workers. Most of us turned out to be nonessential workers, and it quickly became clear that the number of digits in your annual salary bore little relationship to your labor’s worth in the community. We realized the world could get along just fine without hedge-fund managers and marketing specialists, but we really need garbage collectors.

I know; it’s just a pizza place. We’ll find other places to go. And now that we’ve lived in our town for more than a decade, we’ve been fortunate to make many terrific friends. We don’t need to rely on restaurants for social stimulation in quite the same way, but I still ache for what we’ve lost. Now I have more friends, but fewer connections.

I miss Donna. I miss Paul. And in a world of retro-chic ubiquity and Danish-modern sameness, I really miss that ugly mural.

What’s the restaurant scene like in your town? Has it changed in the last several years? Do you, or did you, have a regular hangout spot?