What’s the Future of Food, Hospitality, and Restaurants?

When we first got to NYC we got acclimated by walking everywhere. It was love at first sight and we dove in. That meant going to museums, theater, parks, different neighborhoods and most of all the restaurants.

We would treat ourselves on birthdays and anniversaries and go to one of the top restaurants like Le Bernardin, Le Giraffe, Chanterelle, and Bouley that comes to memory and makes me smile. We were the youngest in the room but we felt so grown up and sophisticated.

When I was in schmatta, I could take my clients anywhere. I’d read the Zagats book cover to cover marking the places I wanted to check out. Through that read, I would even get to know neighborhoods.

I’d take my clients out to dinner, essentially sourcing it to see if Fred and I needed to return. The lamb shank and white bean dish at Alison on Dominick’s was a must.

The next surge of less formal restaurants began really when we moved to the city. That was when Danny Meyer opened Union Square Cafe. It was the beginning of a movement that has escalated over 35 years.

I keep looking and thinking about each industry and when was the last major change. Slow climbs are much different. There has been a steady climb for 35 years connected directly to the world of technology.

It has been a good run. In some industries, people don’t have time to contemplate as you do when it is a slow crescendo. There is a need to accelerate the restaurant’s world’s new places to bring back the economy it supports from the bartenders, the waitstaff, the caterers, the companies the farms that are sourced for food, the cleaning crew, the chefs, and the impact they make on the community.

Rents have to change, technology probably needs to be heavily integrated into the back end and what else?

What comes next?