The Matter of Restaurant Bookmark Graveyard
The list contains forty-three restaurants. Seventeen are closed. None of the open ones have been visited.
She found it during a search for somewhere to celebrate. The bookmark list opened on forty-three pins. She had not looked at the list in eight months.
The first pin she tapped was a wine bar in the old quarter. Permanently closed. The information appeared in gray text under the name, added by the platform at some point between the original bookmark and today.
She scrolled down.
The Graveyard
By the fourth tap she had developed a system: tap, wait for the gray text, move on. The fourth was a ramen place that had become a bubble tea shop. The fifth was unclear; the listing still appeared but the phone number had been disconnected, which she discovered by calling it, which she had not intended to do when she tapped the pin.
The sixth was open. It was a breakfast restaurant. She had bookmarked it in 2019 for a specific Saturday morning brunch that had not occurred. The specific Saturday morning brunch still had not occurred. The restaurant was still there, possibly awaiting her.
The Intention Problem
The bookmark is not a reservation. It is a statement of intention that has not been reviewed since the intention was stated. The intention was to go to these places. The places have continued existing, or have ceased to exist, without her input. They had no way to know she intended to come.
She counted: of the forty-three bookmarks, seventeen were confirmed closed. Three were inaccessible for uncertain reasons. Four had changed their concept significantly enough that the original reason for bookmarking no longer applied. One had moved to a neighborhood she did not visit.
That left eighteen that were open and relevant and had been relevant for anywhere from one to four years without a visit.
The Alarm
The alarm is not about the closed restaurants. The alarm is about the eighteen.
She scrolled to the top of the list. She tapped the one she had bookmarked most recently, three weeks ago, during a walk through an area she rarely visited. It was open. The reviews were good. The walk from the metro was twelve minutes.
She opened the reservation app. The earliest available table was three weeks out.
She bookmarked the reservation page. It was easier. She would come back to it.