City Guy In The 'Burbs

Episode Eight

Now that I live in the suburbs I dine out a lot earlier.  In fact, with early bird specials at some of the local eateries, I’m eating dinner at time that is not too far removed from when some city dwellers are eating lunch.  I’m not totally opposed to this change.  At my age, I find I do better through the night if I give myself sufficient time to digest my food before going to bed.  Plus it is cheaper.  In one of our many Italian restaurants in town (I’m convinced Italian restaurants make up 85% of suburban establishments), you can eat off the bar menu for $5 per entrée if you order by 6pm.  Right, that’s $5.  In New York, my former home, $5 will get you a small bottle of sparkling water, but no food.  You can’t buy anything to eat there for $5 unless the restaurant is willing to sell you one shrimp.

So let me talk about New York.  No one, other than, say, a transplanted, septuagenarian farm owner goes out to dinner in New York before 8:00.  It’s unseemly.  If you show up at a restaurant before then, no one will greet you at the door, the tables won't be set, and most of the wait staff will still be out in the alley smoking cigarettes.  No, in New York dining out starts around 9:00 and really gets going about 10:00.  If you can stand it and wait until 11:00 or midnight to eat (I will have chewed off my right arm by then), that’s when the real exotic clientele starts to arrive.  At that hour, the guys for the most part look normal, albeit wearing nothing but Armani and appearing very, very European.  But the women, well, they all resemble Lady Gaga in full regalia, only taller approaching Amazonian height.  Two years ago I was in New York on business eating at a chic restaurant near Carnegie Hall and was almost decapitated by the headwear of one beauty whose hat looked like it was designed by the person who invented the desk spike paper impaler.

And, mind you, it’s not just New York, although New York probably takes top prize.  In Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, dining out is a late night thing too.

So you can imagine my surprise and perturbation when I recently took my daughter out to dinner at the newest Italian restaurant in our town and, although we arrived at a premature 6:15, there was not a table available or even a seat at the bar.  I thought the place would be half empty.  Did these folks have somewhere to go after dinner?  I doubt it since, for example, the closest theater district is about 30 miles away.  And I didn’t see anyone there even close to being a septuagenarian.  Maybe all these young people just wanted to be home in time to catch the ten o’clock news.  Just like me.