
Eating Alone by Design: An Entire Restaurant With Tables for One - loisaidasam
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-04-24/eating-alone-by-design-an-entire-restaurant-with-tables-for-one
======
kyro
Do people have a hard time sitting alone at a restaurant table for 2+? More
often than not I prefer to eat lunch alone; it's my time to think, wind down,
escape from my constant interacting with others at work, and fully enjoy my
meal without distractions. I've never felt uncomfortable or have been treated
differently for eating alone. I do it almost every day. It's an experience
that's been achievable for some time now and I'm having a hard time
understanding why this is noteworthy. It's OK to eat alone, anywhere, maybe
except at grandma's on Thanksgiving.

~~~
gph
I felt a little awkward when I was a bit younger and not as used to it,
especially in the large, busy, wide open places. But I've gotten over it, and
most lunches I eat alone without thinking about it.

Still if you look around we are definitely the minority. It seems like some
people can't stand the thought of eating alone. Sometimes co-workers will
practically beg you to go eat lunch with them if they don't have anyone else
to go with. I think people place a stigma on themselves about it even though
they won't look twice when they see someone else out eating by themselves.

~~~
backlava
I occasionally feel like my waitress is pitying me when I eat alone. Poor guy
eating alone. Or maybe she's just angling for a better tip...

~~~
aaronem
I've definitely noticed a different response from waitstaff when I'm on my own
than when I'm out with friends; it seems as though, in the former case, a
waiter will tend to be a bit less formal and more friendly than otherwise.
It's a little odd, perhaps, but it also tends to result in better service, so
I'm not about to complain.

------
rdl
If I'm not taking a laptop, my favorite "eat alone" option is a sushi bar --
especially if it's a smaller sushi bar or a lower activity period, you can
interact with your chef.

(Probably the best sushi bar meal I've had was when I had an 0600 flight out
of SIN, and was saying at the old Changi Le Meridien; stayed up until 0100 at
the sushi bar, split several bottles of soju with the chef, and had about SGD
400 in sushi and alcohol for what they billed as SGD 80. Omakase + alcohol =
wonderful thing.)

I wonder if there are other cuisines (perhaps yet to be invented) which would
work the same way. The market for dining alone is growing. The
teppanyaki/benihana experience sort of works, but not so great alone.

~~~
beachstartup
> I wonder if there are other cuisines (perhaps yet to be invented) which
> would work the same way

going to a regular bar / gastropub works exactly the same way.

* it's a bar

* you can be there alone or with people

* you interact with the bartender

* he makes food and drink for you (or bar staff does)

* he drinks with you and bullshits with you

* he can discount your food and you tip him

* you develop a relationship if you go there often

you are assigning undue uniqueness to the sushi bar experience because it's
not western cuisine. the actual interaction is not unique. there's also plenty
of other cuisines in asia (outside of japan) that work the same way, i.e.
street food, noodle bars, etc.

~~~
rdl
I rarely go to bars with food (or at least, don't order food), and at a lot of
bars, the point seems to be to interact with other patrons, which is different
from a sushi bar (where that ~never happens).

~~~
samstave
How about a restaurant where you are always paired up to eat with a stranger
(or maybe two strangers). Get to know eachother and its a set price - so you
always both pay exactly the same amount; say $25.

~~~
rdl
Talking to strangers w/o context is something I'd pay $25-50 to avoid,
generally. If it were strongly filtered by interest, perhaps, but the problem
with 1:1 while eating is you're trapped. The nice thing about a sushi chef (or
bartender) is they know when to stop, and what topics to stick to.

~~~
sukuriant
Then maybe add a context :)

The world needs more places where people can just come together without
pretense and maybe a common interest and mingle. I, for one, don't get into
the club or bar scene, since I'm not a drinker and I'm bad at dancing; and not
everyone is religious, so Church doesn't serve that purpose well, either

~~~
nitrogen
Startup opportunities abound. I look forward to the day a solution is found.

------
enraged_camel
I know the common advice is "never eat alone," but I love eating by myself,
and often do so at my desk during the day. I eat slowly, I _hate_ talking
while I eat, and I have some frowned-upon habits such as picking out
ingredients I dislike from the food. This restaurant seems to be designed for
people like me!

~~~
dasil003
Probably for the best as I understand enraged camels pretty much universally
to be considered poor dining companions.

~~~
axanoeychron
On Slashdot this would have gotten +3 Funny.

------
SonicSoul
One benefit that's not immediately obvious is the lesser likelihood of loud
conversation next to you. I work in coffee shops on the weekend, and there is
usually 30% chance someone loud will be telling stories at my table. Good
headphones are a must, not as suitable at a restaurant.

------
Ryel
I think the culinary differences from the USA to another country like China
are mostly about history. The Chinese have had a much longer tradition of
celebrating and appreciating their chefs while Americans seem to prefer to put
a blindfold on and act like animals arent killed for food and chefs like to
spit in your meal. Because of our lust for 'mass-market' we've created this
tradition of cooks that make minimum wage right out of highschool and only
count the seconds in between flips of a frozen hamburger patty. Turns out
handcrafted burgers dont scale well.

The enjoyment you may get out of talking to a sushi chef or similar is this
mutual respect that if the chef wants to talk to you about software, you are
the professional and you've spent your life perfecting it. When you speak to a
sushi chef, you expect the same level of competence to go into his food. In
other countries often when you go out to eat you don't even know the name of
the restaurant, or even care... When you make plans to go there you reference
the restaurant by the name of the chef that works there. "Hey, I heard Chef
Baca is working at Roberta's Pizza Joint, we should go". When you go to a
sushi bar, you expect the chef to give you your sushi exactly how it's meant
to be eaten. You dont ask for a side of ranch, or ketchup, which is kind of
like walking into an art gallery and asking the artist if he can add some more
red brush strokes to his painting because you really prefer it that way.

As an artist, or a chef, I would kindly ask you to leave and take your bowl of
ketchup on the side with you.

~~~
mason240
With an attitude of "you will take I think you should like and be happy with
it," I hope you work far away from anything related to user interface.

>Americans seem to prefer to put a blindfold on and act like animals arent
killed for food

I am at a loss on how you possibly come to that conclusion about a country
that, aside from Canada, has more hunters per capita than any other Western
nation.

~~~
judk
Number of Western nations in Asia: 0

------
septerr
I like eating alone. My favorite way to eat is to eat while reading something
interesting. A good book somehow makes the food more enjoyable.

I think as a culture we socialize too much around food. People meet, date,
celebrate, have family get-togethers around lunches and dinners. I think we
need a cultural shift where we socialize around doing something together.

~~~
dragonwriter
Eating _is_ doing something. And its one of the things that _everybody_ does.

~~~
squintychino
I think the point here is that eating does not require a social component.
Food does not taste better by virtue of having another person present.

------
tsunamifury
I don't understand, I eat alone all the time and would never want a solution
as ham-fisted and silly as this. Every eatery in the city has a great bar
section for either being alone or meeting strangers.

This just looks silly.

~~~
anigbrowl
Amsterdam is a very crowded city. Part of what you're paying for here is being
left alone to eat in peace, rather than having your meal rushed because the
table could more profitably seat a couple. There's no shortage of places where
you're welcome as an individual if you don't mind rubbing shoulders with other
people, but if you want a little space of your own without necessarily staying
at home, your options are quite limited.

------
schnevets
I could think of 100 uses for a come alone eatery:

    
    
        Sports bar where every booth gives good access to a TV
    
        Clean finger foods and a massive desk so you can get work done
    
        A place that promotes eating while reading with comfy chairs and a quiet atmosphere
    
    

But none of them seemed to be applicable to this design. Their food better be
phenomenal, because I can't think of any other reason to go to a place like
this.

~~~
zhemao
Yeah, I know. I don't really have a problem eating alone in a regular
restaurant. I think it would feel more awkward in a restaurant where the
tables are meant to have only one person.

------
allochthon
Although I sometimes go to restaurants by myself, my preference is to blend in
by sitting at a common table or at the bar/counter, rather than take up a
table on my own. It's nice being within earshot of all of the background
noise. I think a restaurant of one-person tables would be a bit of a downer.

------
ThePhysicist
This is one of the saddest business models I've seen so far. The only thing
that beats it are probably the one-person fondue sets (or BBQ sets if you're
American) that you sometimes see in supermarkets...

For me, the prototypical "one-person" restaurants are Japanese noodle bars
though, where most people sit at the counter and eat by themselves. In
general, Japan seems to have embraced this idea of catering to a generation of
singles much earlier than the rest of the world, probably due to their high
number of single households and low birth rate. Considering the declining
birth rates throughout the world this kind of business will become more
relevant other countries, too.

~~~
hnriot
"Considering the declining birth rates throughout the world..."

where did you get that statistic from?

~~~
rdl
Birth rates have been declining and sub-replacement-level in Japan, "rich"
Europe, and parts of the US for years (decades, I think) -- Japan and
Singapore are particular far along on this. Plus of course the great Chinese
experiment of the "one child policy", and Russia's collapse in birthrate in
the late 1980s/1990s (largely due to the fall of the USSR).

Even in high-fertility countries, it's been dropping from 5 to more like 2-3,
largely correlated with female education and opportunities other than (early,
exclusive) motherhood.

(The US would have a negative growth rate if it weren't for immigration,
largely from Spanish-speaking nations in the Western hemisphere.)

Population of the earth as a whole is still increasing, but that's largely due
to a few parts of the world which have had huge birthrates in the past and a
large population under-30 (and under-18, so it will continue for a while.).
It's a mean vs. median problem.

~~~
hnriot
thanks for the explaining why you suggested the world's birth rate is
dropping.

As you say, population of the earth as a whole is still increasing, and the
birth rate is not in decline.

It's not a mean vs. median problem at all.

If it were in decline we wouldn't be facing one of the biggest global issues
of over population.

~~~
rdl
Population is one number. Birth rate is a derivative of that. A rate of change
in birth rate is the second derivative of population.

Population'' is clearly negative -- the global birth rate IS in decline, and
has been since 1950 according to the UN (I don't see earlier stats).
Population is still increasing because Population' is positive. (well,
actually Birth rate > death rate).

Per country, it actually is a median vs. mean problem; most countries (hence,
median) have below-replacement birth rates; there are a limited number of
countries with substantially above replacement birth rates, due to both
fertility and the demographic composition (lots of young people).

~~~
dragonwriter
> Population is one number. Birth rate is a derivative of that.

No, its not. For several reasons. Firstly, because the derivative of
population is the rate of population growth (persons/unit time) which is not
just the rate of births per unit time, but births minus deaths. Secondly,
because "birth rate" isn't the rate of births per unit time, but the rate of
births per unit time per unit population.

> Population'' \-- the global birth rate IS in decline, and has been since
> 1950 according to the UN

Those statements are only distantly related and only the latter is clearly
true. While the birth rate (births/person/year) has been dropping for quite a
long time, the second derivative of population with respect to time was around
0 from the late 1980s to recently, with the first derivative hovering at
around 1 gigaperson / 12 years, though projections are that that rate of
increase is slowing somewhat now. The second derivative of population with
respect to time was actually _positive_ for most of the 20th century, with
each successive billion people added in a shorter period of time until it
leveled off around at the 12 years / billion level. [1]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth)

------
notduncansmith
Isn't the popular idea to "never eat lunch alone"? I first heard that a few
years ago and really took it to heart. Since adopting that strategy, I find
myself building stronger connections with the people I work with and expanding
my network beyond my coworkers (finding tech-oriented people to have lunch
with is hard work where I live, something I don't think I would do if not
living by that mantra). While I recognize the value of alone time (and place
high value on it in my own life), lunch and dinner are two places where I feel
like I'm really missing out if I spend them alone.

------
tromp
The Dutch name "eenmaal" means "once" but can also be read as "een maal"
meaning "a meal" or in this case, as "één maal" meaning "one meal". Cute
worldplay...

------
Nizumzen
When I was travelling I split off from my friends for a couple of weeks and
had to eat alone. I quite enjoyed it actually.

Doing a bit of discreet people watching is always interesting (to me at least)
and it was even better being in a foreign country where you can see the
differences between your own culture and theirs.

I did feel a bit embarrassed at first but once you sit down and order what you
like its fine. No one pays you any attention at all.

------
jmstout
Tables for one... you mean desks? They're eating on desks?

------
swayvil
I'd eat there and feel bad.

Also, that site is a bloated hog.

------
soneca
Why so much theories and effort to make eating alone look like something
superior?

I like eating alone since always, because I like to be kept to my own to
think. I need some time alone, only and usually my ipod. It is just a
particular need, not a character trait that make me superior, cool,
interesting, etc.

I understand why a company (or a industry) would want to make some kind of
consumism look like a status indicator - I surely understand why that
particular restaurant would want that. But why some journalists also are
always trying to dictate where status come from?

~~~
bryans
I went back to read the article twice more after seeing your comment, but I'm
failing to understand how you interpreted this piece as an assertion of
superiority. I don't see anyone (neither the owner nor author) trying to
dictate status. The only assertion being made is that eating alone doesn't
deserve the stigma it currently has in society.

