RESTAURANT STORIES
Go out there and show you can eat alone in a nice restaurant
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, July 06, 2009
Does the thought of eating by yourself in a restaurant embarrass you? If your answer is “yes,” then please stop what you’re doing. Cancel any dinner plans you might have made. Lose the people you’re with, and march yourself over to one of your favorite places without any company. You’ll thank me.
Afraid you’ll look like a friendless loser? Then bring reading material. Perhaps not “People” magazine or a pad of Sudoku puzzles printed on pulp paper. Try instead a copy of the New Yorker, an important-looking work of narrative nonfiction or a boring novel by a famous author that was once assigned to you in college, but you never got around to reading. This says you’re not a friendless loser, but rather someone who is using this evening to enrich his mind. You can always play Sudoku on your phone.
Johnny Crawford/AJC file
Bartender Jeff Hagley serves patrons food and drinks at the bar inside Bacchanalia on Friday,11/02/08.
Even so, the hostess may still give you the once over when you walk into the restaurant and ask, with a pitying tone in her voice, “Just one?”
Do not lie your way through the embarrassment. Do not say, “I’m in town on business,” because that will make you sound sleazy. And do not try, “My wife is in the hospital,” because that will make you sound both sleazy and pathetic.
Above all else, do not let the hostess show you to the really cruddy little three-legged table wedged by the buser’s station. It’s the one reserved for the solo diner with a big, capital “L” on his forehead.
Why don’t you want to sit in the dining room? First, that lone march to the table for one feels like a perp walk. Second, the people at the next table will assume you’ll eavesdrop on their conversation. Which, of course, you will.
So, after the hostess asks, “Just one?” you should respond, “Can I grab a seat at the bar?”
“Of course,” she says, waving you inside. You should find, if possible, a series of at least three empty bar stools and choose the one in the middle.
Once you sit down, the bartender will take a gander at your book and ask, “Will you be dining with us tonight?”
Do not affirm right away. If you do, he will immediately set a place in front of you — silverware, a water goblet and a poly-cotton-blend napkin folded into a big triangle for your placemat. If this happens you will flashback to a long-ago memory of sitting in a highchair and being forced to consume canned corn and a cut-up fish stick, and it won’t seem fair that you’re the only one eating.
Instead, order a beer or a cocktail and say, “I might take a look at the menu.”
Look how far you’ve come. You’ve got a nice, cool beverage in one hand and an enticing menu in the other. And nobody thinks you’re a freak.
You should feel emboldened enough to order exactly what you want. There is no more shame. I mean, you’ve already done the hard part. You’re already at the cash register with the copy of “Playboy,” so what if you make the cashier wait for a moment while you go fetch a Charleston Chew?
Perhaps you want three appetizers. Or a half order of the pasta special with a hamburger patty on the side. Or a cheese plate with extra bread. Kitchens are usually more willing to take special requests from single diners than from large parties.
By the time your food comes, chances are the bar stools next to yours will find occupants. This is where your book prop comes in handy. Crack it open to an advanced page and focus your eyes on it. This gesture says, “Listen, lady, I’m not here for your ‘bar scene.’ I’m just trying to eat my dinner in peace.”
She doesn’t buy it. “What are you reading?” she asks.
You glance surreptitiously at the page to make sure you know. Ah, yes.
“‘The Mill on the Floss,’” you respond. “Some say it’s one of George Eliot’s lesser works, but I find it captivating.” Pray she wasn’t an English major.
The conversation will limp along. She’ll ask what you’re having. You’ll recommend the pasta. Soon it will be clear that you are there simply to eat your dinner, and she will turn her attention back to her friend on the other side.
At that point, you can pull out your phone and start playing Sudoku. Order more bread. Ask for a half glass of wine.
Now you know the secret: that people who eat alone at bars project confidence. You’ve earned your stool.
