Notes From All Over -- Part 2 -- October 12, 2020

Dining on the go: our older daughter and son-in-law down the street have been doing their best to support local restaurants. His company gave every employee a $100-gift card to be used at local restaurants; I don't know if that was a one-time good deal or if the company will repeat it periodically. 

In addition, the family has me over every Sunday evening for a dinner "catered" by a local restaurant. Generally it is delivered; occasionally, one of the family members drives to the restaurant to pick it up. Three observations:

• generally, there's a mistake in the order, when ordering appetizers, entrees, desserts for six people; something is usually forgotten in the delivery (but it is not forgotten on the bill);
• way overpriced; I'm not sure if we're seeing increased prices due to the restaurants' attempts to stay afloat, but restaurant prices seemed to have increased; and then, of course, the delivery fee, and delivery tip; and, worst of all,
• food does not travel well.

On my own, I would never have "fine dining" delivered. I'm not even enamored with "less-than-fine-dining" being delivered. Food simply does not travel well. And it never looks all that great arriving in styrofoam/cardboard boxes with the food slippin' and slidin' around during the delivery. 

French fries don't travel well at all. 

That's probably why pizza delivery does so well. In addition to the umami factor -- cheese and tomato -- pizza not only travels really, really well, but it can be refrigerated very nicely -- and, on top of that -- much more value for the buck. 

Those were my thoughts. 

Then this article in The WSJ over the weekend:

"Diners Want More Meals To Go During Coronavirus. Chefs Are Feeling Boxed In." A cheesy headline that doesn't get to the real issue. The subtext: restaurants are wrestling with packaging shortages and high costs as they rush to meet the demand for takeout food and replicate the restaurant experience at home. "French-fries-to-go suck."

Interestingly, the share of "off-premise" (takeout) dining is trending toward pre-pandemic levels suggesting folks are experiencing the same things I noted above. If "off-premise" dining goes back to pre-pandemic levels it suggests that most folks are like me: takeout works in England for Indian food, and in the US for pizza, but that's about it.

By the way, remember that WSJ article in which the writer suggested a $120-differential in the price of an  Watch would keep people from buying an  Watch? From the linked article on dashdoor dining:

Garry Kanfer said he has spent at least $70,000 to create takeout packaging for his New York restaurant Kissaki Omakase, which serves a $150 per person multicourse traditional Japanese dinner––sometimes sushi topped with caviar. 

The challenge was finding a way to package the fish in a way that people would still want to pay $20 for a sushi roll or $7 per piece of nigiri.

Are you kidding me? The Apple Watch story and the dashdoor dining story are in the same newspaper, targeting the same demographic. One writer things folks willing to spend $150/person for grubhub dining won't tolerate a $120 differential on the price of a watch.

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Dashdoor Dining: I Don't Love You Any More

Is she the best blues singer right now?

You Don't Love Me, Maria Daines