These are all so good!! I don't have much in my town or neighborhood, so my request would be very simple: a beautiful bakery with good coffee, a few tasty vegetarian-friendly meal options, and room to set up with a laptop and work. Daydream number two would be that Joanne Lee Molinaro might move to my small Massachusetts town (why? I dunno) and open the first Korean vegan restaurant. But I would take a casserole bar. Yumm!!
I’d pay anything to eat at “Childhood Supper” featuring a buffet of the ordinary things we used to have and complain about. Mine would feature beans & fishcakes, beans & hotdogs, American chop suey, and hamburg casserole ❤️
I find myself thinking more and more about those very specific childhood dinners that were in regular rotation for some reason that might be unique to your family--like I remember us eating a lot of Stove Top Stuffing and I wonder which one of us liked it so much?
This is very particular to where I live, Birmingham, Ala., where the best of the dozens of barbecue restaurants is called Saw's. There are now a few locations of Saw's, but the original is in my neighborhood. For years, the space next to it was under-used/vacant, and my non-BBQ-eating partner wanted to rent the space and start a restaurant called Slaws. She was fiercely adamant that Slaws would sell only slaws: cabbage slaws of all kinds, fennel slaws, broccoli slaws, and so on. There would be plenty of toppings — nuts, soybeans, avocado, chickpeas, sunflowers seeds, etc. — but no animal proteins. And no other dish types. No soups, no sandwiches, no salads (unless they were slaws). Just slaws at Slaws.
OMG I am so here for SLAWS! Your non-BBQ-eating partner is clearly the sort of creative soul who comes up with new and brilliant ideas all the time. Love it!
I was just wishing for a restaurant with retro mom food -- chicken salad with tarragon, stuffed peppers, spinach dip, things based on butter or cream-of-something soup. Maybe an occasional jello mold.....
Sure there's overlap with your casserole king, but can there be too many hash brown casseroles in one neighborhood?
I'll call it Picky. It would have a *very* eclectic menu with selections that appeal to my husband and me, as well as to my extremely picky 12-year-old, and my picky-in-a-different-way 9-year-old. It would also have some sort of non-annoying entertainment (something akin to the little peg games on the table at Cracker Barrel) to keep the kids busy. Then, maybe we could go out to dinner without someone whining, or pouting, or refusing to eat their meal because "it looks weird". Side note: I recently read the The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai (translated last year from the original Japanese) and found it delightful. It's about a very special (and mysterious) restaurant that caters to people's nostalgia.
Pick-a-Picnic, similar to the Party Platter place, but lunch for your chosen activities. Going to the beach? Pick-a-Picnic! Hiking, Wine Tasting, Day at the Park or just sitting around the house? Pick-a-Picnic! Ants not included!
This is a cool idea and it reminded me of a very unique business I encountered while living in Jamaica. A young, entrepreneurial woman started a picnic on the beach business. You went to her website to choose the foods/wine you wanted and she'd have it all set up on the beach in a predetermined spot. Her picnics were simple yet gorgeous! Perfect date material!
I've seen some setups on beaches that looked a little too nice to have come from a cooler in the back seat. Maybe this explains it. I would never glamorize food service, but honestly this sounds like a fun business to run.
Agreed, it does sound fun-ish. For me the fun part would be the presentation of it and the customer satisfaction but I'd never be into it enough to source food items and put it all together.
Love it! And yes, this is similar but not the same as the party platter place. For instance, you might want a picnic you could lug up the side of a mountain, in which case you're looking for compact and nutrient-dense and minimal waste to carry back down. That's a solid idea.
Diners... yes Portland needs a diner. Amy - were you in Portland in time to remember Quality Pie on NW 23rd... awesome Hot Turkey sandwiches with gravy - comfort on a plate. We also need a good Greek taverna like Alexis back. I love the soup bar restaurant - that would have to have she-crab soup. My quirky restaurant need is a Baked Potato Bar - really good big Idaho Russet potato's with all the toppings you could ever want....
A baked potato bar is an excellent idea, and they could even bring in different types of potatoes! Your baked sweet potato, your fancy heirloom potato...I'm here for it!
Also, this reminds me of not one, but two weird specific restaurants that connect to turkey: A little grocery store deli that specialized (year round) in Thanksgiving sundaes--a bit styrafoam cup filled with stuffing, turkey, maybe green beans etc, topped with mashed potatoes, gravy, and a dollop of cranberry sauce on top. Thanksgiving year round!
Also, a little pizza parlor that announced every year that you could bring in your Thanksgiving leftovers and they'd bake them into a pizza for you. Is this compliant with local health and safety codes? Probably not. Was it delicious? I'm honestly not sure. But there was something awesome about the idea.
This is reminding me of another thing I desperately want--granita di caffe con panna, which I had every day in Orvieto and cannot find anywhere. I guess I'll have to go back to Orvieto.
I love this. My dream / fantasy restaurant would be a "build your own lunch" place, set up like an old fashioned cafeteria featuring homemade comfort food from a rotating group of countries and cultures. Over the course of a month you could go from Italy to Uzbekistan without leaving the neighborhood.
This reminds me of something else I was wondering recently--you go to, say, an Italian restaurant, and they love to claim that they're making authentic regional cuisine from some particular part of Italy. But they're not--it's just generic American Italian food. Why not have an Italian restaurant that rotates through a different region of Italy every month, al la Stanley Tucci? Same with Chinese, Indian, even Mexican--they'll claim to cook a specific region's cuisine but they never really do. I would like this to change!
Excellent!!! Example, Sardinia uses toasted pasta in a very special way and lots of bottarga. It would be so delicious to travel through Italy meal by meal! When we first moved to San Diego there was a restaurant run by a young man who offered simple dishes -- equivalent of tacos or street food -- from each region of Mexico. We loved going there.
We had that soup bar in Providence when I was in college -- Jensen’s Good Soups!! It was exactly as you describe. I always thought they should shift to being an ice cream parlor with just a couple of soups on the summer. Love the rest of your ideas well, especially re the diner solution. So needed, so obvious now that you’ve thought of it. As for my specific restaurant -- we used to love caswell’s on SE 12th. It was the perfect walkable neighborhood bistro with low key, super cozy cafe atmosphere, extremely reasonable prices and a consistent menu of vaguely French entrees that were just a touch fancier than you might make at home. Maybe there are still similar restaurants around portland but I haven’t found that place in my current neighborhood (near Alberta) that checks all those boxes.
My mom used to make the best pie crust. I tried but can’t duplicate it. Pretty sure she used lard. So I would love a pie restaurant with all kinds of pies from around the world—sweet pies, savory pies, pot pies, hand pies (mum used to make corned beef hash hand pies that were so good!) etc., etc. It would be called Vi’s Pies after her. Just no pizza pies—we have enough of those!
Oh, I love a pie. It's all the more difficult to get now that I'm 100% plant-based, but if I could come to your restaurant and eat all sorts of vegan pies, I'd be there... lovely!
YES! I'm totally here for a pie restaurant. We actually had a hand pie place in our neighborhood briefly. Cannot imagine why it didn't last, hand pies are the best.
I follow a Chicago account and their fans are always talking about going to pie shops. It's apparently a very common Midwestern thing but I'd die for a place to sit down for pie and tea near me on the East Coast. I hike with a couple of cousins monthly and we've recently added stopping for pie and coffee/tea at mom&pop restaurants afterward ever since we celebrated a hiking anniversary that way a few months ago.
Revive the Automat! All the different windows could accomodate a lot of choices and dietary needs, and the traditional comfort food could be modernized, which is very trendy nowadays. It's an introvert's dream--self-service food, consumed in a communal space, so you get the human connection but don't neccissarily have to engage too much. And keep the Art Deco decor; haven't we all had enough Modern Farmhouse by now?
TOTALLY! An Automat would be so much fun, especially if there were weird little surprises tossed in now and then. There's a place in Portland that has a couple of dessert vending machines available for 24 hour use: https://www.pixpatisserie.com/pixomatic
I'd love to see a restaurant based on the classic/old-fashioned department store restaurants - same fancy and vintage interior design, as well as having a menu based on the various department store restaurants that used to exist, and their individual specialties.
Yes! I've enjoyed the San Francisco Union Square Nordstrom restaurant in years past. Weirdly, they had the best coffee I've ever had (well, in the USA, anyway)--I've never forgotten it.
When I was a teen (back in the day), there was a perfect place called Salmagundi. It only served soup (3 rotating daily + always chili) with a decent mixed salad, you could only choose dressing (I still dream of their blue cheese vinaigrette) and a few toppings. It was perfect but eventually, like all perfect things, it vanished.
Your ideas are also perfectly thought out and viable.
I still think about the soup bar down by Fulton Fish Market in NYC that I stumbled upon one very chilly day, at least 25 years ago. Could never find it again (their margins must have been a bear), but boy was it the exact right thing in the exact right place at the exact right time.
These are all so good!! I don't have much in my town or neighborhood, so my request would be very simple: a beautiful bakery with good coffee, a few tasty vegetarian-friendly meal options, and room to set up with a laptop and work. Daydream number two would be that Joanne Lee Molinaro might move to my small Massachusetts town (why? I dunno) and open the first Korean vegan restaurant. But I would take a casserole bar. Yumm!!
Yup I second the casserole cafe!
I love how many people are into the casserole thing!
Kinda makes you wonder why no one's doing it, huh?
I would definitely go for the casserole restaurant. I love them, to doing a good one requires too many steps and dirty pans.
Everyone needs a good bakery like that!
I’d pay anything to eat at “Childhood Supper” featuring a buffet of the ordinary things we used to have and complain about. Mine would feature beans & fishcakes, beans & hotdogs, American chop suey, and hamburg casserole ❤️
I find myself thinking more and more about those very specific childhood dinners that were in regular rotation for some reason that might be unique to your family--like I remember us eating a lot of Stove Top Stuffing and I wonder which one of us liked it so much?
This is very particular to where I live, Birmingham, Ala., where the best of the dozens of barbecue restaurants is called Saw's. There are now a few locations of Saw's, but the original is in my neighborhood. For years, the space next to it was under-used/vacant, and my non-BBQ-eating partner wanted to rent the space and start a restaurant called Slaws. She was fiercely adamant that Slaws would sell only slaws: cabbage slaws of all kinds, fennel slaws, broccoli slaws, and so on. There would be plenty of toppings — nuts, soybeans, avocado, chickpeas, sunflowers seeds, etc. — but no animal proteins. And no other dish types. No soups, no sandwiches, no salads (unless they were slaws). Just slaws at Slaws.
I absolutely love this as my diet is 100% plant-based. I'd be queuing up to try a different slaw each day!
OMG I am so here for SLAWS! Your non-BBQ-eating partner is clearly the sort of creative soul who comes up with new and brilliant ideas all the time. Love it!
I was just wishing for a restaurant with retro mom food -- chicken salad with tarragon, stuffed peppers, spinach dip, things based on butter or cream-of-something soup. Maybe an occasional jello mold.....
Sure there's overlap with your casserole king, but can there be too many hash brown casseroles in one neighborhood?
Yeah, there's a lot of nostalgia on this list. Interesting how many of us aren't looking for new and exotic--we want old and familiar and unfancy.
I'll call it Picky. It would have a *very* eclectic menu with selections that appeal to my husband and me, as well as to my extremely picky 12-year-old, and my picky-in-a-different-way 9-year-old. It would also have some sort of non-annoying entertainment (something akin to the little peg games on the table at Cracker Barrel) to keep the kids busy. Then, maybe we could go out to dinner without someone whining, or pouting, or refusing to eat their meal because "it looks weird". Side note: I recently read the The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai (translated last year from the original Japanese) and found it delightful. It's about a very special (and mysterious) restaurant that caters to people's nostalgia.
Oooh thanks for the book recommendation!
Pick-a-Picnic, similar to the Party Platter place, but lunch for your chosen activities. Going to the beach? Pick-a-Picnic! Hiking, Wine Tasting, Day at the Park or just sitting around the house? Pick-a-Picnic! Ants not included!
This is a cool idea and it reminded me of a very unique business I encountered while living in Jamaica. A young, entrepreneurial woman started a picnic on the beach business. You went to her website to choose the foods/wine you wanted and she'd have it all set up on the beach in a predetermined spot. Her picnics were simple yet gorgeous! Perfect date material!
I've seen some setups on beaches that looked a little too nice to have come from a cooler in the back seat. Maybe this explains it. I would never glamorize food service, but honestly this sounds like a fun business to run.
Agreed, it does sound fun-ish. For me the fun part would be the presentation of it and the customer satisfaction but I'd never be into it enough to source food items and put it all together.
Love it! And yes, this is similar but not the same as the party platter place. For instance, you might want a picnic you could lug up the side of a mountain, in which case you're looking for compact and nutrient-dense and minimal waste to carry back down. That's a solid idea.
Diners... yes Portland needs a diner. Amy - were you in Portland in time to remember Quality Pie on NW 23rd... awesome Hot Turkey sandwiches with gravy - comfort on a plate. We also need a good Greek taverna like Alexis back. I love the soup bar restaurant - that would have to have she-crab soup. My quirky restaurant need is a Baked Potato Bar - really good big Idaho Russet potato's with all the toppings you could ever want....
A baked potato bar is an excellent idea, and they could even bring in different types of potatoes! Your baked sweet potato, your fancy heirloom potato...I'm here for it!
Also, this reminds me of not one, but two weird specific restaurants that connect to turkey: A little grocery store deli that specialized (year round) in Thanksgiving sundaes--a bit styrafoam cup filled with stuffing, turkey, maybe green beans etc, topped with mashed potatoes, gravy, and a dollop of cranberry sauce on top. Thanksgiving year round!
Also, a little pizza parlor that announced every year that you could bring in your Thanksgiving leftovers and they'd bake them into a pizza for you. Is this compliant with local health and safety codes? Probably not. Was it delicious? I'm honestly not sure. But there was something awesome about the idea.
Savory flavors ice cream parlor.
We get a bit of that at Salt & Straw but it's not a whole ice cream parlor devoted to that.
With a good coffee bar. I eat my ice cream with a shot of espresso and it’s an unpopular combination in US.
Actually Affogato is on a lot of dessert menu's here now. You are correct it is a delicious combo!!
This is reminding me of another thing I desperately want--granita di caffe con panna, which I had every day in Orvieto and cannot find anywhere. I guess I'll have to go back to Orvieto.
That sounds dreamy too.
I love this. My dream / fantasy restaurant would be a "build your own lunch" place, set up like an old fashioned cafeteria featuring homemade comfort food from a rotating group of countries and cultures. Over the course of a month you could go from Italy to Uzbekistan without leaving the neighborhood.
This is an exciting idea. I'd keep my eyes on the menu to make sure I caught all my favourite international foods.
Wow! I'm here for that!
This reminds me of something else I was wondering recently--you go to, say, an Italian restaurant, and they love to claim that they're making authentic regional cuisine from some particular part of Italy. But they're not--it's just generic American Italian food. Why not have an Italian restaurant that rotates through a different region of Italy every month, al la Stanley Tucci? Same with Chinese, Indian, even Mexican--they'll claim to cook a specific region's cuisine but they never really do. I would like this to change!
Excellent!!! Example, Sardinia uses toasted pasta in a very special way and lots of bottarga. It would be so delicious to travel through Italy meal by meal! When we first moved to San Diego there was a restaurant run by a young man who offered simple dishes -- equivalent of tacos or street food -- from each region of Mexico. We loved going there.
We had that soup bar in Providence when I was in college -- Jensen’s Good Soups!! It was exactly as you describe. I always thought they should shift to being an ice cream parlor with just a couple of soups on the summer. Love the rest of your ideas well, especially re the diner solution. So needed, so obvious now that you’ve thought of it. As for my specific restaurant -- we used to love caswell’s on SE 12th. It was the perfect walkable neighborhood bistro with low key, super cozy cafe atmosphere, extremely reasonable prices and a consistent menu of vaguely French entrees that were just a touch fancier than you might make at home. Maybe there are still similar restaurants around portland but I haven’t found that place in my current neighborhood (near Alberta) that checks all those boxes.
Yeah, why doesn't every neighborhood have a good soup bar? Soup is so endlessly experimental!
My mom used to make the best pie crust. I tried but can’t duplicate it. Pretty sure she used lard. So I would love a pie restaurant with all kinds of pies from around the world—sweet pies, savory pies, pot pies, hand pies (mum used to make corned beef hash hand pies that were so good!) etc., etc. It would be called Vi’s Pies after her. Just no pizza pies—we have enough of those!
Oh, I love a pie. It's all the more difficult to get now that I'm 100% plant-based, but if I could come to your restaurant and eat all sorts of vegan pies, I'd be there... lovely!
YES! I'm totally here for a pie restaurant. We actually had a hand pie place in our neighborhood briefly. Cannot imagine why it didn't last, hand pies are the best.
I follow a Chicago account and their fans are always talking about going to pie shops. It's apparently a very common Midwestern thing but I'd die for a place to sit down for pie and tea near me on the East Coast. I hike with a couple of cousins monthly and we've recently added stopping for pie and coffee/tea at mom&pop restaurants afterward ever since we celebrated a hiking anniversary that way a few months ago.
That is a great idea!
Revive the Automat! All the different windows could accomodate a lot of choices and dietary needs, and the traditional comfort food could be modernized, which is very trendy nowadays. It's an introvert's dream--self-service food, consumed in a communal space, so you get the human connection but don't neccissarily have to engage too much. And keep the Art Deco decor; haven't we all had enough Modern Farmhouse by now?
TOTALLY! An Automat would be so much fun, especially if there were weird little surprises tossed in now and then. There's a place in Portland that has a couple of dessert vending machines available for 24 hour use: https://www.pixpatisserie.com/pixomatic
I'd love to see a restaurant based on the classic/old-fashioned department store restaurants - same fancy and vintage interior design, as well as having a menu based on the various department store restaurants that used to exist, and their individual specialties.
Also, I second the Automat idea.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/department-store-restaurant
Yes! I've enjoyed the San Francisco Union Square Nordstrom restaurant in years past. Weirdly, they had the best coffee I've ever had (well, in the USA, anyway)--I've never forgotten it.
When I was a teen (back in the day), there was a perfect place called Salmagundi. It only served soup (3 rotating daily + always chili) with a decent mixed salad, you could only choose dressing (I still dream of their blue cheese vinaigrette) and a few toppings. It was perfect but eventually, like all perfect things, it vanished.
Your ideas are also perfectly thought out and viable.
Come on restauranteurs!
Simple and totally viable.
I still think about the soup bar down by Fulton Fish Market in NYC that I stumbled upon one very chilly day, at least 25 years ago. Could never find it again (their margins must have been a bear), but boy was it the exact right thing in the exact right place at the exact right time.