Pete Wells’s last column for the NY Times as restaurant critic: I Reviewed Restaurants for 12 Years. They’ve Changed, and Not for the Better. “We feel increasingly alienated from the people who cook and serve our food.”
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Discussion 6 comments
I’m worried that Pete threw out his shoulder shaking his fist so hard at the cloud.
Sometimes the old man shaking his fist at the cloud has a point tho?
Yeah he has a point. I also hate QR code menus and Insta culture and the transactional feel of a lot of restaurants lately. Pete has every right to be upset by how inhumane some of these experiences feel. I get that. But to me his rant felt as cold and formulaic as the business practices he’s criticizing. Where’s the empathy for the restauranteur who is just trying to stay afloat, keep their no show rate down, keep their costs in line, and be where their customers expect them to be (on OpenTable or Tock or Resy)? And where was any mention of the actual food these restaurants he’s shaking his fist at are serving? Sure it sucks to use OpenTable, but after all those meals he’s enjoyed is there truly no joy in Mudville?
Sorry, I’ll stop before I throw my own shoulder out.
My fist shaking angst towards QR code menus was the first time I felt old.
Starting a meal with everyone looking down at their phones at barely legible restaurant websites is genuinely awful, though.
Those do feel super alienating and the points about everything being about reducing inconvenience and the uncertainty that having to actually call somewhere might bring are well met. This also sounds like he’s maybe tired of NYC/Manhattan (the disneyfication).
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation..
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!