‘In Other Words, We Lied’
While trying to act like it’s all awesome, we posted our beautiful food and our best ideas
Your favorite restaurant is closed. Anything open is a ghost kitchen with a skeleton crew serving takeout comfort. An industry that supports millions of Americans and flourishes on the freedom of assembly and the pursuit of happiness is shut down and may not come back. For the time being, we are all eating alone.
For American restaurants, it was an overnight collapse, which, like overnight success, was long in the making.
You didn’t notice we were hurting, because our Instagram posts were so perky. We spent hours cultivating the perfect tone and styling self-consciously messy pictures. We posted our beautiful food and our best ideas. We’ve been trying to act like we think it’s all awesome. In other words, we lied.
Even before the coronavirus outbreak, independent restaurants were under pressure from an emerging cluster of threats: the enervating, margin-sapping pull of takeout platforms run by technology companies, political indifference, and rising fixed costs.
Restaurants have thin profit margins — 10 percent if you’re lucky, often less. Delivery apps promise increased sales but push us into the red…
