Last week I received my weekly missive from Michael Williams and his wonderful newsletter, A Continuous Lean. Michael was one of the early menswear bloggers I followed. As an advocate for domestic production he introduced me to the concept of buying less but buying well. This was important as I navigated my early twenties, dealing with the excitement you get from early post-college paychecks, burning a hole in your pocket when you should be saving.
I’ve always appreciated his simple insights and ability to wade through a lot of the bullshit excitement loop of the internet. He has a candor I appreciate and an ability to suss out what is good vs. what is bad, and why. He’d make a great restaurant reviewer.
And to my surprise, last week, he was. Writing about the New York he once knew, he considers the reinvention of Eisenberg’s, a sandwich shop near Madison Square Park that was not “great” as much as it was classic, old school, a little grimy, and uniquely its own. It was simple, low-frills, trend-free, and it felt undiscovered. (I started going over a decade ago after watching a video of the late, great Josh Ozersky making a visit.)
Sadly it closed, got bought, reopened with some tweaks, and all of the sudden the food universe was rallying around the reopening of what was more or less the same thing that no one had cared before.
I appreciated Michael’s willingness to wade through the chorus of “this is so great!” and actually step back and look at the details. In the end, he didn’t love the new iteration (which goes by the name S&P), and I think he provided some great, simple evidence as to why it may have missed the mark.
The whole post got me thinking about the world we are living in now. It is an age of hyperbole. Everything is either the greatest thing in the world or it’s absolute shit. Nowhere is this more evident than the universe of restaurants.
Every morning I open my laptop to read the feedback received from our customers the prior day, across all of our restaurants. Guests leave a starred rating (1 to 5) and offer feedback through the RESY app, which prompts users for the intel after every dining experience.
Without fail, there are only two potential outcomes: it’s either FIVE STARS, or it’s ONE STAR. Everything is either perfect, the greatest restaurant to ever exist, or (thankfully, rarely) the place is totally overrated, deserves to close, the food sucks and the place is a disaster. There is no nuance, no considered critique.
Where did the 3 or 4 stars go in our culture?
I see the same patterns online - rampant on social media. Users are either shouting from the rooftops about the best restaurant in the solar system, or they are declaring that a place needs to be boycotted and shut down immediately. All this from one experience, limited to only a few touch points, a few moments stitched together over the course of two hours. How much can you really tell about a place from that limited interaction?
Being “the best” is overrated. Everyone is so caught up in being the best, the tops, the indisputable top dog. I constantly tell my team that I don’t want to be the best, I want to be the favorite.
Sometimes a place doesn’t need to be PERFECT for you to love it. The food doesn’t even have to be that good. I’d love to see more restaurant recommendations like Alison Roman’s recent thoughts on Balthazar from Interview Magazine: “The food is so bad, it’s too expensive, I love going there.”
I love this take, and I've heard people use the line "Instead of being the best, be the 'Ol Reliable' place."
Great thoughts! Don’t know how many times I’ve been to the “IT” place and felt disappointed because of all the hype. It wasn’t that it was bad..just not the greatest ever and no restaurant can be the greatest every meal anyway. I try my best to not let the hype get in my way and look for the things that would make it good or bad.