“The camera eats first” has become the bedrock of restaurant economics, and the way this has played out will always be funny to me. I think of when I studied abroad in college, how one of the most insisted upon pieces of advice was that any restaurant with giant photographs of the food outside was a tourist trap and was not to be trusted. And yet here many of us are, on our phones, poring over photos of a restaurant’s food to decide whether it’s good enough to pay for.
It’s all well and fine that every restaurant has an Instagram or a TikTok that has often supplanted a website as the hub for information, and that this allows restaurants to post seductive photos and videos of their offerings. But here is something that has happened too often to me: I’m scrolling Instagram, I am served a video of some incredible looking meal, and I click through to see what this place is and if I can visit. And I find that, amid the photos and the ironic slogans written in all-lowercase, there is no information on where the hell this place is.
For instance, a post from Le Caveau was shared into my Instagram feed, which made me wonder if this was indeed a bar I could check out on a random weeknight. But clicking through I was left with only the information that it was indeed a bar. There was a clue that it was “above @tgktavern,” but clicking that only led me to another profile that listed hours but no location. (Both are in Philadelphia I learned, thanks to the power of investigative journalism, aka clicking through twice to a website.)
I cannot fathom why a restaurant would fail to include its address, or hell even its city, front and center everywhere it possibly could. But this is not a new complaint. Back in 2008, Jennifer Maiser at KQED was making the same argument about websites, as restaurants too often used them to show off instead of conveying useful information like hours or addresses. And yet, it’s still happening. I’ve seen restaurants that say they are in “NYC” but fail to list exactly where in the 300 square miles of the five boroughs. I’ve seen restaurants that list their hours but not location, so thank you, I’ll be sure to show up at 1:30pm on a Tuesday…somewhere. And most astoundingly, I’ve seen restaurants that leave no crumb as to where they are at all.
The problem is we live on a global internet, where an enticing meal could be down the street or could be across an ocean. I know often the information I seek is a matter of clicks through the website to an About page, or a quick Google away, but Google kind of sucks now, and with every click people tend to grow less interested in the thing they’re trying to find. The least a spot can do is not make me go on a digital scavenger hunt.
Restaurants, I am trying to frequent your business! Please make it easier by telling me where you are.
Ravenous is supported by subscribers like you. If you like what you're reading, become a paid subscriber today!
New on Ravenous This Week
Amy McCarthy
Courtney E. Smith
Ashok Selvam
🐦⬛ Bird Droppings
- I was in The Guardian talking about Courtney’s amazing story about private equity and cookies, and why a lot of people are very skeptical of private equity investments in restaurants.
- If you read VegOut for your vegan news, watch out, it and many other sites owned by Brown Brothers Media are plagiarizing or outright inventing stories with AI.
- Adam Reiner on how fine dining expectations have gotten out of hand, and why the guest isn’t always right.
- Is it just us or does the new Daniel Humm boxed pasta look like gentrified Hamburger Helper?
- Nonprofit Feed the Mass is opening a grocery store in Portland, with the goal of keeping groceries affordable (and giving away a bunch of food, too).
