Many of you know that I used to liken my sales profession to having lunch for a living, as most of my meetings involved breaking bread with a prospect or referral source around the 12:30pm hour each weekday. The benefit to those lunches I always felt was that you could learn a lot about a person over a meal, you have a chance to bond, and hey, we are talking about a business lunch which is certainly a step up from Subway– no offense to turkey/provolone sandwiches with mayo which remain an old fave.
My lunch program also enabled me to try a whole lot of new places in NYC that I would otherwise have not been able to visit due to both peso constraints and schedule availability. So “Doing Lunch” has been my thing for years.
And now that my new job (yay!!) involves a ton of networking over breakfast, lunch, and dinner, imagine my delight when I met a new referral source and he described himself as a Lunch Guy. I knew we’d get along juuuust fine.
But things have certainly changed a lot on the dining scene in NYC post-pandemic. My NYC lunch hiatus has been about three and a half years long because previously I’d been focused on clients out of state. But now that I’m back full force with daily meals and stacked coffee meetings, I’m smack dab in the middle of restaurants that appear to be in full swing. We’re talking three course lunch specials, blisteringly loud dining rooms, and many many men in blue suits sporting stylish wingtip alternatives, with nary a tie to be found even amongst the most conservative. Menus appear to have changed a lot as well. There are less choices, the prices are crazy, and multiple milk options are the norm almost everywhere.
A bread basket starter was standard operating procedure at most places back then and now you have to order one if you want it. And they get ya for as low as $6 and as much as $20 for these carby critters! With fancy names like Our In-House Bread and Butter Service or Homemade Focaccia Starter or something overly bougie. Jeez. Will we all end up at Olive Garden for lunch just to save a few dollars?
Eating out in restaurants everyday makes me look forward to being home each night and relaxing in a low key environment that’s noise controlled by me, portion controlled (usually) by me and dessert comes immediately after the meal is finished. I can even kick back and watch a little Food Network or Cooking Channel while I enjoy my dinner. I really try to make the best of both meals even though at heart I will always be a lunch gal.
So just to recap, in this episode we found our protagonist happily avoiding Subway, enjoying restaurants on the daily and adjusting to a newish norm. Lunch is loud, men don’t wear ties, and bread has gotten expensive. She enjoys being home after an out of house food excursion and is grateful for the small luxuries of controlling the temperature of the food and the decibel of the room. Doing Lunch is so much fun and hugely productive for business, but self-directed dinner is her end of day respite. Dishes seem to be her just deserts while frozen yogurt is her actual dessert!
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