the product

a wednesday wander

My favorite saying about restaurants – which also happens to be true – is that “A dining room is a workshop. The product is not food; the product is the customers.” (RIP AA Gill, and a penny for his review of the hereafter.)

The other day, I found myself sitting in a new-ish restaurant in a town I don’t know, looking at their setup and thinking how much it looked like every other new-ish kitchen I’ve seen. There was roll-on flooring and a big wood grill, made by one of the two fabricators everyone uses. Same stations in the kitchen, same brands of equipment behind the bar, same menu as all the other new-ish restaurants I look at.

One of the things I like about Gill’s analogy is that it frames the customer as the workpiece – the object being wrought. While we like to think of ourselves as the subjects in our relationship with commerce, we’re really objects as well.

What happens to the workpieces when all the workshops look the same?