As you’ll have noticed if you’ve been reading this newsletter for awhile, I write about urbanism and land-use issues mostly, but not exclusively. And one of those other topics I come back to occasionally is food and restaurants.
This ties into my interest in retail and business, and the way restaurants fit into cities and neighborhoods. And also, well, food. But as much as I enjoy going out to eat, I also love cooking at home. And with prices being what they are, cooking at home is a huge way to save money.
But while inflation might be a proximate cause for cooking more at home, there’s a much longer-term trend that I’ve thought about here and there, and want to write about today.
I first mused about this when I wrote about an old-school bar and grill in my hometown that closed in the later half of the pandemic. There were multiple reasons: the place had gone downhill even before the pandemic, the food didn’t translate well into carry-out form, and, at least for me, it felt kind of stuffy and tired.
Read Full Article »