Cultural Quakes and the Future of Place

A couple weeks ago, I spent the night in a hotel in downtown Seattle so I could catch an early flight back to the southwest. It happened to be a Friday. I needed to go to the drugstore for lady stuff and ibuprofen, but all the drugstores within walking distance were closed, though it was only 8pm. But there was a 7-Eleven a few blocks away still open. I put on my shoes and coat, brushed my hair, and—my mother’s daughter after all—swiped on some lipstick and went out into the night. 

I walked north away from the hotel, past half-block long storefronts of restaurants that were empty and overly bright, a few lone servers sweeping and setting tables, finishing their closing sidework. It was not even 9pm on a Friday and they were shutting down. The streets were empty, and the only cars sped past me like bats out of hell, heading somewhere else. 

I turned towards the 7-Eleven gleaming on the corner at the bottom of the sloping side street.

As I approached, I saw a line of people stretched from the entrance down Third Avenue. There was banter and laughing, but also some sort of elaborate rule system to which I was an outsider. I realized it was a group of homeless people, and this was their hangout. I asked the guy at the front—he seemed a regular—is this a line to get in? Can I go in? He swung the door open and gestured me inside. Apparently the rules—whatever they were—didn’t apply to me.

Inside was busy and noisy. Two lines, two cashiers, lots of banter. I grabbed my few things and waited my turn. Here, too, there seemed to be a protocal known only by insiders, which had something to do with scratchers and a certain number of minutes before getting another one. I said to the harried cashier who checked me out, “Wow, this is the hottest spot in Seattle right now.” He nodded, “Every night, every night like this,” he said. 

As I left, the gentlemen waiting their turn outside again opened the door for me. I turned back towards Fourth Avenue, and another group of unhoused persons congregated across the street shouted a few choice comments about my outfit. Flattering, but not to be repeated. I walked back to the hotel, past more quiet restaurants and quiet bars, along an empty sidewalk, lining traffic-less streets. 

If you want to know what is going on with hospitality right now, this sums it up pretty well. Downtown Seattle—a city awash in multiple generations of tech money—is ghosted on Friday night. Fewer and fewer people work there; fewer and fewer people hang out there. The city shuts down at 8pm. The only people “going out” are apparently the ones who live out, and have nowhere else to go. The 7-Eleven is the only place with a line, and a scene—like Club Lotus when I lived in New York, a quarter century ago. Only homeless dudes are hanging out, opening doors for chicks, or trying out awkward pickup lines.

I get it. That night I was grieving something, and planned to order room service, watch movies and wallow in my sadness. To isolate and eat alone, while staring at a screen. Even for me, who makes places I want and need to be full of people, sometimes going out to eat doesn’t seem worth the trouble. Sometimes you really do need pizza and jammies and to watch The Notebook for the tenth time. 

As, I walked past the oblong bar in the lobby towards the elevators, I realized that the last thing I needed was to be alone with my boohoo vibes. It wasn’t slammed like a Friday night should be in a hotel bar, but there were enough people and din and bustle to be inviting. I found a seat at the bar and texted Jeff that I had made it back safely from my unexpected adventure. I was T9 texting, since I have a flip phone. This caught the attention of the guy sitting near me. So we struck up a conversation as I ordered a burger and a Caesar salad from the bartender, Hugo, who I soon learned was excellent at his job and super sweet. Fascinated-By-Flip-Phone told me he had three kids in their twenties, and couldn’t wait to tell them he met someone with a flip phone. I told him I had downgraded from a smart phone a while ago, and just couldn’t make myself go back. I also told him I worked in food, and that smartphones had changed a lot in my business, not all for the better. I mentioned my foray to 7-11, and how ghosted downtown felt. He was from Minneapolis and said the downtown area there was even worse. 

We started talking about kids these days—maybe because it used to be young people who would be out on a Friday night, packing the hot spots, or maybe because for people of a certain age we just can’t resist the subject. He said that his kids thought of food more as something to get through, a transaction that has to be taken care of, but not something to linger over or waste time on. I said “Yeah, people seem to think that making meals take less time and trouble is a new idea, an innovation, but actually the apes and monkeys had that figured out a while ago.” He thought this was funny. 

He finished his dessert and left. A couple took the space he had vacated. They were into astrology, one was a Leo, as am I. We talked about our sun signs. I finished my burger, Hugo gifted me a macron and a chocolate, I got my check, left a stupidly big tip, then went up to my room.

I’m not going to say I was cured completely of the sadness that felt like wet cement. Or that the thing I was grieving went away. But I was a different person from when I had left. The fresh air, the brisk walk, the social contact, the feeling of being taken care of, the food and drink and their warm afterglow—it had all worked its subtle magic on me. I felt better, lighter, like a person again. And I will remember that night for a long time, unlike the countless room service meals or takeout orders I’ve devoured and forgotten. Like the containers they come in, meals eaten out of boxes, or alone in solitary boxes, are disposable. They are forgettable. They don’t become part of us, of our memories, in quite the same way. 

What happens to us when so much more of our lives is as transient as a pizza box? When we eliminate the chance to bump into one another, or talk to an interesting stranger, or sit at a table together? I would have saved a lot of time and effort by just Doordashing myself some tampons and ordering room service. But what are we saving time from?

And where is this time going? Every year, each of us has thousands fewer IRL interactions with one another than we used to, not that long ago. Life, and its inconveniences, used to force us out of our heads and solipsism, more. You had to put on pants and go someplace to get things you wanted or needed. You had to get out of the house, and be around people, even if you really didn’t feel like it. Our being together was a bi-product of living. Life required being out in the mix. Now, nomadic homeless people seem to have more community than the homed.

For decades, the way we live—our daily habits and rhythms and disposable incomes —have been creeping incrementally away from the habits, rhythms, lives and income that most cities, towns, and places were built to service. The old and built and the new and virtual were slowly separating, but clinging together along fault lines, kinda making it work, absorbing the growing distance as latent, disruptive energy. And then, finally, the opposing forces overwhelmed the hold. We’ve had a cultural earthquake.

This means that brick-and-mortar places have become vestiges. Particular tasks don’t have to happen in particular places—work has been busted out of offices, movies out of theaters, socializing out of bars and cafes, commerce out of stores or shops, art out of galleries, learning out of classrooms, food out of restaurants or even grocery stores, even court out of courthouses. Downtowns, and the necessary concentration of commerce and population that defined and gave them their power, their frisson, are relics of another time. 

Places don't serve the simple, practical, real purposes they used to. They are not needed in the same way. Now we need places more like we need fiber in our diets—the togetherness and embodiment they offer we have to seek out deliberately, now, like eating more vegetables.

The restaurant business has never been easy—it’s a cliche repeated even by people who know nothing about the business. If I had a dollar for every time some dude on a plane said to me “oooh, that’s a tough business” upon hearing what I do, I would be unperturbed by our industry’s blade-thin margins. But our margins were always thin, food has always been hard to make well at scale, and the people drawn to the work a little bit crazy quirky (myself included). When you are busy AF, this doesn’t matter so much. It’s hard, but doable. Hard, but fun. 

Restaurants are hard now for crucially different reasons, on top of all the old ones. We were invented to service community—concentrations of humans mucking it up together. As our experience of community changes in the aftermath of this tectonic technological shift, for many independent restaurants, thin margins have become no margin at all. We are going to have to reinvent ourselves to persist in the modern world. 

Given all this, someone I know recently asked me why I don’t just quit. My answer is—I’m not going to give up just because there was a cultural quake. I am a maker. Makers gotta make. And the thing I love to make most of all—even more than food—is places for people, with plants and trees and flowers and music and art and yummy food and delicious drinks and good vibes. Places for laughter and talking, grieving and parties. Places for falling in love over dinner. Or even fighting. For all the feels.

Does that make me a canal boater in the age of trains, a horse-drawn buggy in the age of the automobile, a flip phone in the age of smart phones? 

Perhaps. But without places, we are malnourished. Without places, no matter how much we are communicating, we lose track of one another. You don’t really know how someone is over text, or behind the social media mask. To know how someone really is, you have to be face to face. You have to be emplaced, together. 

We used to be hunter-gatherers of culture. Now, we can stay in one place, and culture comes to us. It has been domesticated. But just like the domesticated crops of agriculture are a simplification of natural soil and wildlife, I’m worried that domesticated culture, though convenient, will also be less complex, diverse, and autonomous. Less magical and mysterious too.

It’s gonna take creativity to deal with all these changes. Place-makers are going to have to make places even better and livelier to help everyone remember that not only do we need one another, but deep down we crave one another. We have to help orchestrate the togetherness that used to be a bi-product of life. We will have to cooperate, not just compete.

And we have to make experiences that connect the dots of culture, bringing together music, art, food, literature, film in place. 

In other words, we gotta throw a lot of parties and do a lot of cool shit. And so that’s our plan for this Spring, and throughout the year. Here is what that looks like over the next couple months. 

The new site is live. My uber-talented team worked really hard on it, and it turned out pretty great. We are still working out some of the kinks and links, especially for mobile, but it’s pretty much road ready. 

AUSTIN—Bloody Mary Festival 

We are taking our KALE MARY to the streets this weekend at the Austin Bloody Mary Fest, and we fully expect to take home the title. I mean, who else juices up fresh kale, celery, grape tomatoes ...and adds VODKA? If you are in town, score a ticket and party with us. I’ll be there, with a rad outfit, appropriately epic garnish, and that competitive spirit that sometimes scares my staff. 

AUSTIN—LIVE Under the Oak

We had our first live music event during SXSW, on a Friday night, with Erika Wennerstrom, Alexandra Riordan and DJ Club Palo Santo. It was all awesome—the incredible musicians, sound quality, vibes, twinkly luminaries, and people listening to music together, under our big oak tree. What I loved hearing people say that it felt like an old-school Austin backyard party—we carried the torch of that laid-back Austin vibe that got people so excited to move there to begin with. And the other thing I loved to hear was that we should do more of these! We agree. So we’ve decided to do LIVE Under the Oak the fourth Friday of every month. Our next gig will be April 24th, and we’ll let you know who is playing as soon as we confirm. 

AUSTIN—Live Oak Market

We are starting a Farmer’s Market on Sundays under our rad retro parking awning and even, we hope, in front of the restaurant on College Avenue and stretching into the pocket park that fronts Congress. That is if the city lets us. But it’s looking good. First market is slated for Sunday May 17th. It will be another week before we are active on socials and the website is finalized, but you can follow us at @liveoakmarket.

It will be the only urban farmer’s market of its kind in South Austin, and we are planning to make every one a concatenation of farming, ranching, wellness specialists, makers, tarot readers, artisanal producers, beekeepers, knitters. If you know of or are a vendor interested in renting a booth, hit us up here.

SANTA FE, AUSTIN, ALBUQUERQUE—Mother’s Day Madness & DJs Back at Brunch

Santa Fe will be open for brunch on Sundays again, starting on Mother’s Day, continuing through the summer. And speaking of making omelettes in one’s good dress, I will be back again with Erin’s Omelette Bar, slinging our signature half-moon ommies for the mommies all day long. It was so much fun last year! But I am going to remember sun screen this time, because I burnt the bejesus out of the backs of my shoulders.

We will also have our DJ’s back for Mother’s Day weekend everywhere. It’s never too soon to make a reservation. 

Modern General’s Mother’s Day Bake Sale will be back, with cinnamon rolls, passion fruit tarts, our coveted granola, cookies, and macaroons.

Vinaigrette ABQ—Tiny’s Soft Opening, Kids Pickle Ball Tourney, Charity Match and a Big Fat Patio Party—June 5th, 6th, 7th.

We are bringing the live music love to our Route 66-vibed courtyard in ABQ, with a weekend-long party, soft opening of Tiny’s, kids’ pickle ball tourney, and live music on Friday and Saturday night. DJ’s will be at brunch both Saturday and Sunday at Vinaigrette. 

If you are a singer, beat boxer, actor, performance artist, potter, painter, maker, tarot card reader or poet, get in touch with us, in Santa Fe, Austin or ABQ. The people who make culture need to collabs. We need to keep culture located in places in order to truly honor what creators create.