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The Next Supper
The End of Restaurants as We Knew Them, and What Comes After
Description
A searing expose of the restaurant industry, and a path to a better, safer, happier meal.
In the years before the pandemic, the restaurant business was booming. Americans spent more than half of their annual food budgets dining out. In a generation, chefs had gone from behind-the-scenes laborers to TV stars. The arrival of Uber Eats, DoorDash, and other meal delivery apps was overtaking home cooking.
Beneath all that growth lurked serious problems. Many of the best restaurants in the world employed unpaid cooks. Meal delivery apps were putting restaurants out of business. And all that dining out meant dramatically less healthy diets. The industry may have been booming, but it also desperately needed to change.
Then, along came COVID-19. From the farm to the street-side patio, from the sweaty kitchen to the swarm of delivery vehicles buzzing about our cities, everything about the restaurant business is changing, for better or worse. The Next Supper tells this story and offers clear and essential advice for what and how to eat to ensure the well-being of cooks and waitstaff, not to mention our bodies and the environment. The Next Supper reminds us that breaking bread is an essential human activity and charts a path to preserving the joy of eating out in a turbulent era.
In the years before the pandemic, the restaurant business was booming. Americans spent more than half of their annual food budgets dining out. In a generation, chefs had gone from behind-the-scenes laborers to TV stars. The arrival of Uber Eats, DoorDash, and other meal delivery apps was overtaking home cooking.
Beneath all that growth lurked serious problems. Many of the best restaurants in the world employed unpaid cooks. Meal delivery apps were putting restaurants out of business. And all that dining out meant dramatically less healthy diets. The industry may have been booming, but it also desperately needed to change.
Then, along came COVID-19. From the farm to the street-side patio, from the sweaty kitchen to the swarm of delivery vehicles buzzing about our cities, everything about the restaurant business is changing, for better or worse. The Next Supper tells this story and offers clear and essential advice for what and how to eat to ensure the well-being of cooks and waitstaff, not to mention our bodies and the environment. The Next Supper reminds us that breaking bread is an essential human activity and charts a path to preserving the joy of eating out in a turbulent era.
Praise
“With the warmth and humor of a good host, Corey Mintz invites us to meet the people and forces behind the restaurant business, and offers a taste of real change in The Next Supper.”
—Karen Leibowitz, co-founder of Mission Chinese Food
“With a journalistic appetite honed like a Japanese knife, Mintz slices through the ego, spin, and fat of our restaurant obsession to reveal the dark underbelly that threatens everything we love about eating out, serving up a hopeful recipe for the future that may just save dining. The Next Supper is a brilliant, eye opening, fun as all hell book that is mandatory reading for anyone who loves to eat.”
—David Sax, author of The Soul of an Entrepreneur
“Brilliantly written and deeply researched, Corey has delivered the book the restaurant industry has been waiting for. We're in a crisis, and this book turns every question on its head and gives us real life answers. Every single person interested in food needs to read this book.”
—Amanda Cohen, chef and owner of Dirt Candy
“A former line cook turned crusading food writer, Mintz looks deep into the dark heart of contemporary restaurant culture to show us all a better way. Filled with insightful, up-to-the-minute reporting, inspiring characters, and original, even exhilarating ideas, The Next Supper is the ultimate guide to building (and finding!) the restaurants the world deserves.”
—Chris Nuttall Smith, food writer and restaurant critic
“A flinty-eyed look at the world of food and how the pandemic has exposed some of its uglier aspects… Mintz’s account will make readers more knowledgeable eaters.”
—Kirkus
“Before a tiny virus upended the worldwide restaurant business, and the world, Mintz had already begun to fear for the future of restaurants for a host of economic, social, and political reasons…He writes with passion about how he foresees all these pressures working themselves out.”
—Booklist
“Fiery… Mintz offers a searing critique of the food world….With the hospitality industry poised at a point of inflection, this offers plenty of food for thought.”
—Publishers Weekly, *starred review*
“With delivery apps making a killing while restaurant margins dwindle, food writer Mintz asks, Was the restaurant industry ever sustainable? And who benefits from going back to business as usual? Mintz balances a deep appreciation for food with a hard look at the sector’s dodgy labour practices and untenable social and environmental impacts.”
—Quill and Quire
“Continu[ing] the work begun by the late Anthony Bourdain…Mintz optimistically believes that there’s a better future for restaurants and seeks to enlist every one of us in making that future a reality.''
—Manhattan Book Review
“Impassioned…The Next Supper arrives at a muddy, critical moment…You’ve perhaps read about these issues disparately (and increasingly over the last several years) but it’s potent to have them freshly examined right now in one tightly written volume.”
—Bill Addison, Los Angeles Times
