I predict there will be a massive return to indoor eating and drinking when lockdown restrictions are lifted. Where I live, last summer, the moment restaurants were allowed to restart indoor service at reduced capacity, people flooded back. And the demographics of those people (so far as I could tell by looking in restaurant windows) was quite interesting. They were predominantly old, and I mean old enough to be at heightened risk from the virus. But there they were, unmasked in partially full restaurants gaily chatting away.
I think people are desperate for normality, especially those old folks who we were trying to save from the virus. Many have been condemned to a very lonely existence for the past year and I think they’ve made their own assessment of the risk-benefit ratio when it comes to interacting with real, live human beings.
The professional virtue signalers will, of course, be wearing their masks indefinitely.
Promising signs from Italy. I hear that restaurants just reopened, regardless of regulations, and the diners and staff chucked out the police who tried to close them, pointing out that they paid the cops’ salaries.
Something similar might be happening in the Netherlands, which has become an authoritarian tyranny in recent months, with curfews and all the rest of it. A lot of the local hospitality associations are saying they will open the terraces again next week, without government permission.
I’m glad to hear it. Despite a few riots, lockdown measures have worked in the Netherlands largely because of freezing cold temperatures. The Dutch have so few nice days weather-wise, that I can’t imagine for one second they’ll endure another summer being cooped inside their homes. Friends over there tell me it’s scary: martial law, curfew fines, deserted streets, and low-flying helicopters – measures haven’t been seen there since the Second World War.
In Canada and US, we’re still going farther down the rabbit hole, with children masking mandatory and double-masking requirements for adults. As usual, Canada goes ever farther against human rights.
Yes, I now have people wearing double-masks and latex gloves telling me that I’m the goofy conspiracy theorist for expressing skepticism over lockdown measures. Clown world.
Ian Barton
3 years ago
If the lockdowns result in the extinction of the “Celebrity Chefs on Ice” Christmas special on MSM, then society has gained something.
Pleased to report that The Black Boy pub near me, famed locally for the size of its Yorkshire Puds, is now under offer. No plans have been announced to change its name to some woke-approved nonsense.
Only a matter of time..they’ll come for the sign you’ll see
Angus J
3 years ago
I can’t wait to get out with my mates for a beer and a curry. Conviviality is what life has been completely devoid of for a year – life with others, eating and drinking together.
Do it at home with your friends and a great order from a Cloud Kitchen
Laura Pritchard
3 years ago
Cloud kitchens sounds far too nice. They’re also known in the Industry as Dark or Ghost Kitchens. You can imagine who is employed there under what conditions and contracts.
Yeah maybe , but if they’re regulated properly and do everything properly ??
Richard Ennis
3 years ago
I have recently started my own catering company, after running a travel recruitment business for 8 years, and think this is a thought provoking article. Whilst I was already in transition between the two businesses before the pandemic struck, it did require a re-evaluation on how to approach starting up. The outcome has been a wait and see approach, doing what one, where one, can. Takeaway nights, small private family dinners etc. Whilst it has been a great learning curve, it has also been frustrating as you want to get back to ‘normal’. One thing for sure, though, is that people do want to eat good food. It has been the one thing to look forward to. They also will want to get together, and food & drink is an extremely important part of that social glue. Whether that is in homes, parks or venues remains to be seen, and it will be the agile that adapt to the market trends that survive. I agree with Mary, that you need strong social media/marketing, and when I do hire permanent staff, the 1st and most important position will be a Marketing Manager!
If you hire a marketing manager — been there done that — make sure you have measurable goals, and a way to measure them. ” I.E I want to increase web traffic to my site by X, and increase the percentage of people who visit the site and then place an order. I am trying to earn a living, not provide a nice reading experience for people every day, since I am not getting paid for that.” Your marketing effort must produce revenue somewhere along the line, or else it is not part of your business. It is somebody else’s hobby that you are paying for.
This is often difficult to find out, even in these days of vastly improved website monitoring. The old adage was that only 20% of your marketing efforts had any positive effect on sales, and that you would never be able to tell which 20% it was. At least in terms of web traffic, we are better than that now. But there is still plenty of room for ‘shrug, no clue if that had an effect, maybe …’ conclusions.
But unless you set such goals, measure them, and hold your marketing manager to them, you won’t know when you have an expensive turnip on your hands when it comes to marketing. Trust me, every one of these people is great at marketing themselves, to you, or else they would not (and should not) be in the profession. You need to protect yourself so that you know when to chuck your manager out on his or her ear, either for incompetence, or because you discover that word of mouth is doing so well that you don’t really need it, or something else. You do not want to know how much money I wasted, year after year, before I learned this one!
All the best luck in the world with this Endeavour!
Laura
——-
p.s. any way to tell the new commenting system to stop flagging my British spellings as incorrect? Or preserve my paragraphing?
Last edited 3 years ago by Laura Creighton
Ingrid Nozahic
3 years ago
Probably one of the most irritating celeb faces ever !!
Annette Kralendijk
3 years ago
Odd that restaurants in the UK are still closed. And now takeaway is bad? What a bleak world the author lives in.
Trishia A
3 years ago
All this crappy delivery will lead to further obesity, further upping the 9000 annual amputations in the UK due to diabetes, and rendering an ever more obese society even more prone to disease and illnesses. Hooray for futurists and the pharmaceutical industry!
“It’s a culinary and logistical vision optimised for total social atomisation, in which the only food available is made with (quite possibly disgusting) ingredients over which you have zero control.”
Isn’t that eating in most restaurants though? The author seems to be romanticising eating out in the past, and yet most restaurants I know have a thick door blocking access to seeing what is going on in their kitchen for a good reason…
Yes but if they’re properly regulated and conform to all regulations …. what’s the problem ?? You just choose where you want to order from and read the trust pilot reviews and speak to friends ….
davidjbrock
3 years ago
Really enjoyed this article – Thanks Mary . Yep of course restaurants are nice and we all love gathering and eating with friends ….. but what’s to stop you doing that at yours or a friends house with an order from a ‘cloud kitchen’ ?? I’ve also heard them called ‘ghost kitchens’ in Spain , where there is a polemic because the cycle & moped riders from deliveroo / Uber eats etc tend to hang out in narrow streets (I live in central Barcelona) clogging them up and annoying the neighbours . There was actually a campaign on Avvaz the other day to get them banned in the city centre .
Personally – I’m all for them …. anything that takes us away from the the Jamie Oliver celeb chef trash culture …..or being absolutely nailed in one of these awful chain restaurants . I think that they’re here to stay and there will be some interesting developments .
It’s like the end of the era of the big name super star DJ …. Paul Oakenfold on £75,000 for a 2 hour set . Jamie (the mockney geeza) Hugh (the posh boy from the River Cafe ) & everyone in-between can take their overpriced cook books and kitchen utensils & f**k right off!
I predict there will be a massive return to indoor eating and drinking when lockdown restrictions are lifted. Where I live, last summer, the moment restaurants were allowed to restart indoor service at reduced capacity, people flooded back. And the demographics of those people (so far as I could tell by looking in restaurant windows) was quite interesting. They were predominantly old, and I mean old enough to be at heightened risk from the virus. But there they were, unmasked in partially full restaurants gaily chatting away.
I think people are desperate for normality, especially those old folks who we were trying to save from the virus. Many have been condemned to a very lonely existence for the past year and I think they’ve made their own assessment of the risk-benefit ratio when it comes to interacting with real, live human beings.
The professional virtue signalers will, of course, be wearing their masks indefinitely.
Promising signs from Italy. I hear that restaurants just reopened, regardless of regulations, and the diners and staff chucked out the police who tried to close them, pointing out that they paid the cops’ salaries.
At last, ‘the worm has turned’.
Indeed. Thumbs up.
Something similar might be happening in the Netherlands, which has become an authoritarian tyranny in recent months, with curfews and all the rest of it. A lot of the local hospitality associations are saying they will open the terraces again next week, without government permission.
I’m glad to hear it. Despite a few riots, lockdown measures have worked in the Netherlands largely because of freezing cold temperatures. The Dutch have so few nice days weather-wise, that I can’t imagine for one second they’ll endure another summer being cooped inside their homes. Friends over there tell me it’s scary: martial law, curfew fines, deserted streets, and low-flying helicopters – measures haven’t been seen there since the Second World War.
I hope that happens here.
I wish it would, however I fear we are just too compliant as a nation.
In Canada and US, we’re still going farther down the rabbit hole, with children masking mandatory and double-masking requirements for adults. As usual, Canada goes ever farther against human rights.
Not everywhere. We have no mask mandate where I live, much less a double one.
Yes, I now have people wearing double-masks and latex gloves telling me that I’m the goofy conspiracy theorist for expressing skepticism over lockdown measures. Clown world.
If the lockdowns result in the extinction of the “Celebrity Chefs on Ice” Christmas special on MSM, then society has gained something.
Indeed
Pleased to report that The Black Boy pub near me, famed locally for the size of its Yorkshire Puds, is now under offer. No plans have been announced to change its name to some woke-approved nonsense.
Winchester? Love that pub, fond memories from when I lived down in Hampshire.
Only a matter of time..they’ll come for the sign you’ll see
I can’t wait to get out with my mates for a beer and a curry. Conviviality is what life has been completely devoid of for a year – life with others, eating and drinking together.
Do it at home with your friends and a great order from a Cloud Kitchen
Cloud kitchens sounds far too nice. They’re also known in the Industry as Dark or Ghost Kitchens. You can imagine who is employed there under what conditions and contracts.
Yeah maybe , but if they’re regulated properly and do everything properly ??
I have recently started my own catering company, after running a travel recruitment business for 8 years, and think this is a thought provoking article. Whilst I was already in transition between the two businesses before the pandemic struck, it did require a re-evaluation on how to approach starting up. The outcome has been a wait and see approach, doing what one, where one, can. Takeaway nights, small private family dinners etc. Whilst it has been a great learning curve, it has also been frustrating as you want to get back to ‘normal’. One thing for sure, though, is that people do want to eat good food. It has been the one thing to look forward to. They also will want to get together, and food & drink is an extremely important part of that social glue. Whether that is in homes, parks or venues remains to be seen, and it will be the agile that adapt to the market trends that survive. I agree with Mary, that you need strong social media/marketing, and when I do hire permanent staff, the 1st and most important position will be a Marketing Manager!
If you hire a marketing manager — been there done that — make sure you have measurable goals, and a way to measure them. ” I.E I want to increase web traffic to my site by X, and increase the percentage of people who visit the site and then place an order. I am trying to earn a living, not provide a nice reading experience for people every day, since I am not getting paid for that.” Your marketing effort must produce revenue somewhere along the line, or else it is not part of your business. It is somebody else’s hobby that you are paying for.
This is often difficult to find out, even in these days of vastly improved website monitoring. The old adage was that only 20% of your marketing efforts had any positive effect on sales, and that you would never be able to tell which 20% it was. At least in terms of web traffic, we are better than that now. But there is still plenty of room for ‘shrug, no clue if that had an effect, maybe …’ conclusions.
But unless you set such goals, measure them, and hold your marketing manager to them, you won’t know when you have an expensive turnip on your hands when it comes to marketing. Trust me, every one of these people is great at marketing themselves, to you, or else they would not (and should not) be in the profession. You need to protect yourself so that you know when to chuck your manager out on his or her ear, either for incompetence, or because you discover that word of mouth is doing so well that you don’t really need it, or something else. You do not want to know how much money I wasted, year after year, before I learned this one!
All the best luck in the world with this Endeavour!
Laura
——-
p.s. any way to tell the new commenting system to stop flagging my British spellings as incorrect? Or preserve my paragraphing?
Probably one of the most irritating celeb faces ever !!
Odd that restaurants in the UK are still closed. And now takeaway is bad? What a bleak world the author lives in.
All this crappy delivery will lead to further obesity, further upping the 9000 annual amputations in the UK due to diabetes, and rendering an ever more obese society even more prone to disease and illnesses. Hooray for futurists and the pharmaceutical industry!
Well that all depends on what you order ….
“It’s a culinary and logistical vision optimised for total social atomisation, in which the only food available is made with (quite possibly disgusting) ingredients over which you have zero control.”
Isn’t that eating in most restaurants though? The author seems to be romanticising eating out in the past, and yet most restaurants I know have a thick door blocking access to seeing what is going on in their kitchen for a good reason…
Yes but if they’re properly regulated and conform to all regulations …. what’s the problem ?? You just choose where you want to order from and read the trust pilot reviews and speak to friends ….
Really enjoyed this article – Thanks Mary . Yep of course restaurants are nice and we all love gathering and eating with friends ….. but what’s to stop you doing that at yours or a friends house with an order from a ‘cloud kitchen’ ?? I’ve also heard them called ‘ghost kitchens’ in Spain , where there is a polemic because the cycle & moped riders from deliveroo / Uber eats etc tend to hang out in narrow streets (I live in central Barcelona) clogging them up and annoying the neighbours . There was actually a campaign on Avvaz the other day to get them banned in the city centre .
Personally – I’m all for them …. anything that takes us away from the the Jamie Oliver celeb chef trash culture …..or being absolutely nailed in one of these awful chain restaurants . I think that they’re here to stay and there will be some interesting developments .
It’s like the end of the era of the big name super star DJ …. Paul Oakenfold on £75,000 for a 2 hour set . Jamie (the mockney geeza) Hugh (the posh boy from the River Cafe ) & everyone in-between can take their overpriced cook books and kitchen utensils & f**k right off!