Some restaurants are employing the reservation platform Resy to keep track of it all: once collected, the operator can add the party host’s physical address, phone number, and email address to their diner profile. They can also note that temperature checks were administered upon arrival. Then, that’s all consolidated in their new “Contract Tracing Report” feature, should the restaurant need the data for the local health department.
It had been a weird day so far. In the morning, I went to my office to pick up some personal things. My last memory of it had been a vibrant, bustling space, my coworkers laughing and cursing, running late to meetings, spitballing story ideas. Now, it was frozen in time, like everyone had fled at a moment’s notice because in actuality, we had: on one desk sat a half-filled water bottle, another, a lipstick tube with its top slightly askew. A whiteboard in a conference room had “March 2020” sprawled across the top. For a moment, it felt like I’d just arrived to work extremely early, and in an hour everyone would come rushing in, coffee in hand, snipping about their subway commute. But then reality hit. No one was coming.
I’ve worked for my company now for seven years. Three and a half of them were as a low-level assistant. I scheduled meetings, answered phones, and made reservations for people much more accomplished than myself. Many of them were at The Odeon, a perennial New York hotspot a mere few blocks away. It was the place to entertain, to be entertained, to see and be seen. After work, I’d head to the local dive bar with my fellow entry-level employees, and we’d fantasize about the days when we’d book tables there under our own names.
Eventually, the restaurant did become part of my world, not just my bosses’, with its blaring orange-red sign, Art Deco design details, and Hopper-esque interior. As both a professional endeavor and a point of pride, I’d go there every few months during the packed lunch hour to talk shop over a niçoise salad or French Onion soup. And several of my colleagues would be there too, doing the exact same thing.
Today, however, everyone at the other tables were strangers. Across the room sat a man in a suit and tie. I wondered if he was used to seeing his office mates here too.
Soft jazz music blared in the background. I’d never been really able to hear it—usually, The Odeon was a packed, cacophonous atmosphere, too preoccupied with other people’s voices. The melody was soothing, but a bit lonely.
My soup came and I slurped it down, good as I remembered. Would the atmosphere, in due course, catch up too? I scrolled through Twitter, my timeline filled with tweets from the debate. “It's so sad what's happening in New York,” President Trump had said. “It's almost like a ghost town. I'm not sure it can ever recover.”
I looked out the window at The Odeon’s outdoor seating. Every table was filled with lounging patrons, basking in the late September sun, many with a martini in hand. My waiter came up to me. “Thank you so much for coming. We’re so excited for you to be here,” she said. I smiled back. “I am, too.”
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What It’s Like to Eat Inside at a New York City Restaurant Now - Vogue
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