Soleil Ho writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, and she is quoted often in this space. That’s because she is an intelligent and thoughtful commentator about matters of importance to food and dining, which — to be blunt — aren’t always part of the “foodie” conversation in Louisville.
And, by extension, is there any part of the “foodie” conversation we can afford to omit in the present time?
What can we do to save the restaurant industry? Why is it ours to save?
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been on multiple panels, done several interviews and had countless private conversations where folks have asked me what the everyman can do to save restaurants. Do we support the restaurants and bars that are reopening with outdoor seating? Tip 50%? People want to know what we can do to prevent, in the worst case, a total depletion of restaurant culture in our towns and cities thanks to the pandemic.
Those questions, paired with our start-and-stop reopening—with many restaurants building wooden patios over parking lots and suiting up servers and dishwashers in protective gear—indicate that there’s not much we as individual actors can do. In fact, saving the industry shouldn’t be up to us at all.
All of these little interpersonal dramas with servers and managers having to kindly ask customers to wear masks as they walk through dining rooms and people worrying about the ethics of ordering delivery, are the telltale aches from a deeper fracture in our system. Any time a server has to remind a customer to wear a mask or not touch her shoulder, that is a failure of public policy.
Echoing the sentiments of the majority of my fellow food critics—though certainly not all of them—I’m not going to eat at restaurants until there is a vaccine …
Follow the link to read the conclusion.
