Last night, Martine and I had dinner at a restaurant in Glendale that we have loved for twenty-five years. As soon as we walked in, we noticed some ominous signs. The waitstaff were all young, they were wearing bright new T-shirts imprinted with the name of the restaurant, and there was a brand new illuminated sign. Most seriously, the old owner was not there.
For the first time ever, both Martine and I left the restaurant feeling slightly ill. I almost didn’t make it back to my parked car. And it was lucky that there was a large Mobil gas station at the corner of Brand and Chevy Chase in Glendale, where I was able to dispose of some of the intestinal irritants.
Mind you, I can understand why restaurants are dropping like flies. It is no fun to own or work at a restaurant, especially after the Covid-19 lockdowns. And increasingly, there is more microwaving than cooking taking place in the kitchen—by people who don’t know much about food safety.
Not only in restaurants, but across the board the quality of the American meal has declined precipitously. Even supermarkets are moving away from serving customers who do their own cooking. Recently, I have had problems finding basic food items such as barley or peanut oil. What there is no lack of are frozen meals that taste like cardboard and various “helper” mixes for people afraid to make anything from scratch.
Increasingly, the foods that people eat at home or in restaurants are deficient in nutrition and flavor.
One thing that particularly bothers me is the disappearance of ethnic restaurants as the next generation takes charge. When I first came to Los Angeles, there were loads of great Italian, French, Hungarian, Greek, and other ethnic restaurants. And there were even good cheeseburgers that didn’t look like a 300-pound guy named Rufus sat on them.
Tarnmoor 
Let’s be clear about this – the ‘American Meal’ never existed in the first place, and the day someone came up with the concept of a ‘family restaurant’ it was never likely to exist. Anything that is connected to a chain should be treated with suspicion.
This is not some anti-American tirade, because the same applies to Australia and England and New Zealand, to name a few. The ‘ethnic restaurants’, as you describe them, are the only real option for most of us. Australia, certainly, is lucky in that it is a multicultural society traditionally reliant on immigration – we’d starve if it weren’t for that.
So yes, I’d certainly be pushing for more of those (other than Tex-Mex) in your part of the world.
P.S. A hamburger is not a meal.
Nice to hear from you again, RR. I agree with you about the baneful effect of corporations, both on restaurants and food markets. By “American Meal,” I meant nothing more than what is served at mealtime in the U.S.
I am curious that you seem to dislike “Tex-Mex.” By that, do you include all Mexican food, because I am thinking more and more that it is one of the great cuisines — though one wouldn’t think so from all the bad Mexican restaurants around.