Why is food so difficult?

There are few conor proft customers appreciates more than people who eat on their own.

A bartender at the Italian restaurant Fausto, in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, said that solo diners tend to be more dedicated and willing to chat. They are self -aware and more coordinated with the rhythms of the restaurant.

But Mr. Proff Dine alone? Rarely.

“I love the romantic ideal to enter a restaurant and sit at the bar and hit a conversation with a bartender,” he said. “But many times in practice, I’m just consumed with anxiety” to stand out.

This is part of the paradox of solo food. Even when Americans spend more time on their own, many find themselves eating on their own to be full of embarrassment and crisis. And many restaurateurs, who are already managing their businesses in fine profit margins, are worried that the tables for someone will cost them.

Solo reservations in the United States increased by 64 % since 2019, according to Opentable data and 21 % from 2022 to 2023, according to RESY. Increasing food is probably even greater, as many people are just walking in.

The trend can be partially resulted from a post-literal upward trend in business trips when solo travelers have to draw a bite or the increasing attention given to the self-care, said Debby Soo, Opentable’s chief executive.

But more solo dining room does not necessarily mean better stay or less than one stigma, according to the diners and restaurants interviewed by the New York Times. They have strong feelings about the subject: More than 2,000 readers responded to 24 hours after we asked them to share their thoughts.

Several visitors have described the experience of entering a restaurant that hopes to be treated in a relaxing meal, then feel guilty to take up space or fear that it is judged by everyone around them.

“When you walk on your own, the appearance on the host’s host or the hostess’s face changes,” said Rajika Shah, a lawyer in Los Angeles, who was only often handled, as he often moved for work and wanted to explore local food. “It’s sometimes a panic look like“ What will we do with this person? “Or sometimes a look at sympathy.”

Mrs Shah, 51, said she was often taken to the worst table in the dining room, neglected by her server, and then rushed to the end of the meal. He blamed the overturning system – because workers depend on advice, he said, may be less careful for those who spend less than groups.

“I am so tired that I look like a second -class citizen,” he said.

Even the menu can feel exclusion: the common small plates that dominate many menus make it expensive and “difficult to eat a balanced and well -proportional meal,” said Amanda Lao, 55, living in Chicago and started a solo dining room while traveling to her.

Only a photo of someone eating on their own can make people uncomfortable, said Jerry Hsu, a Los Angeles photographer, who began a work called “Table for One” in 2008, shooting Diners solo. When he first published the photos on Tumblr without comments, the viewers accused him of mocking his subjects.

“I honored them,” Mr Hsu said. “They seemed very satisfied.”

When Karen Follon, 77, retired Omaha Development Director, sees someone only on a table, she feels sad for them. “The discussion is an important part of the meal,” he said.

Many restaurant owners have said they would like to accommodate better diners solo, but this desire is sometimes complicated by the difficult finances of the business.

Kann, a Haitian restaurant in Portland, Ore., Turns only a cautious seat for a solo dinner every night on the chef bench.

“In any restaurant, two are the most popular table request size,” said Gregory Gourdet, Kann’s chef and the owner. If he gives a table for two to one person, he said, the restaurant loses money. “I think the margins are so tight and it is so difficult to run a restaurant in America that these systems are just falling into their place.”

In Kann, single walks are heading to the three -seat bar.

For most solo diners, food at the bar has long been the default option, assuming there is a place available. More independent restaurants have begun to get reservations about the bar, but many still do not. And many will not receive table bookings for less than two people.

You cannot book a table for a table, for example, at Cote Korean Steakhouse, Miami and Manhattan, or Coqodaq, a fried restaurant in Manhattan. The menus focus on large -scale festivals for groups, said owner Simon Kim.

“I really wanted to celebrate the shared use of the social dining room-gathering chicken, the sharing of Korean-Barbekis,” he said. “Having a high -energy restaurant with a solo dinner. It is not necessarily part of the atmosphere. It creates a little embarrassment.”

But it still allows for a few parties of one: Coqodaq has a Walk-ins bar to accommodate those who want a lower key experience, Mr Kim said. (Cote’s bar stands only for the room.)

The assumption that people need to be combined or grouped overcomes restaurants, said Bella Depaulo, a social psychologist at Summerland, California, and the author of the 2023 book “Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom and Joy of Single Life”.

Scientists have long examined the negative effects of loneliness, but studies on how it can be a peaceful, self -esteem building experience are rarer, he said. The 2025 World Happiness exhibition, published last week by the Oxford University Research Center, suggests that lonely activities, including lunch solo, can lead to depression and less life expectancy. Dr. Depaulo also pointed out a recent, highly circulated article in the Atlantic, “The Anti-Sosomy Century”, which links practices such as solo food in rehabilitation and loneliness.

Dr. Depaulo finds that the conclusion is doubtful. “People who are lonely are going to stay home,” he said. “They’re not going to go out in a restaurant. The people who come out on their own are sure.”

In this, this bias against Lone Diners feels clearly American. Since the 1950s, he said, the United States has placed high value in the nuclear family.

“We are a nation that really romanticizing romantic coupling and marriage and stigmatizing people who are single or do only things are part of it,” he said. This was compared to stops in countries like Japan, where it is common to see someone hit the ramen or enjoying an omakase solo.

At a time when 46.4 % of American adults are single, according to census 2022 data and many couples sleep or even live separately, Dr. Depaulo said: Why shouldn’t it be socially acceptable to dine on its own?

There is an American restaurant style that firmly welcomes Diners solo: Casual Chain restaurant, such as Olive Garden or Applebee’s.

Food only in Olive Garden has inspired a powerful kind of tiktok video. In Applebee’s, which has more than 1,500 locations in the United States, almost a quarter of all restaurant commands are for individual tickets. His restaurants are designed with the bar in the center to make customers feel comfortable and not isolated, said Joel Yashinsky, head of marketing.

Several respondents said they felt more comfortable eating on their own in a casual restaurant than in a high-end. Others said they felt easier in the big cities, which allow you to “be more anonymous when you walk in a restaurant,” said Nancy Scherl, who photographs Diners solo and published the 2022 photographic book “Dining Alone: ​​in the company of loneliness”.

Identity indicators such as race and sex also play a role. Aaron Fountain, 33, editor at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture living in Silver Spring, MD, said he often gets mismatched when dines alone, or is asked to pay in advance at a sit-down restaurant or be ignored by a bartender. He was wondering if this is because he is black, not because he is by himself.

Paula Shepard, Manhattan fashion manager, said that as a woman eating on her own, she has drawn unwanted attention from men and some have been confused for escort. But it is indefinable.

“My husband and I put two kids and my favorite Sunday afternoon was Mom’s time,” said Ms Shepard, 71, who has a dining room alone for at least 30 years, either for a quick meal before a show or for a loose dinner away from her family. “Go get a mani-pedi and have a nice meal on my own.”