The Matter of Restaurant Menu Patience
Three scenes from public dining in early 2023, when the physical menu returned and the body had not.
Scene 1
A table for two. The host places menus on the table and walks away.
One of the two reaches for their phone. Stops. Looks at the menu on the table. Picks up the menu.
The menu is laminated. It lists fourteen items. There are no filters. There is no dietary tag system. There is no way to sort by price.
You read it from the top.
Restaurant Menu Patience causes one small physical adjustment at the point of seating. The menu is real and requires a different kind of looking.
Scene 2
The waiter arrives before the second person has decided.
The first person has decided. They ordered the same thing they order everywhere, which is the outcome that would have occurred with any menu format. The second person asks for one more minute.
Nearby people begin mirroring the adjustment. The table to the left also asks for one more minute.
Nobody has announced anything. The room develops etiquette around the laminated rectangle.
Scene 3
The second person orders. The waiter leaves. The first person places the menu at the edge of the table.
The activity is ordinary again while the body still treats it as negotiable.
The body knows what it expects and what arrives is a laminated rectangle. This is not a complaint. The food will be the same. The room is pleasant.
There was just a moment, two years long, when the rectangle was replaced by a screen, and the hand that reached for the screen found a rectangle instead.
It is fine. The food arrives at the same time regardless.
It is fine.