Eating as an Act of Protest

By DON ROLLINS

Mom and Pop restaurants. You can’t grow ‘em and you can’t kill ‘em, but you can ignore ‘em, or so goes the historical Wall Street take on working-class eateries. Indeed, as conceptualized by the three major American stock exchanges, locally owned blue-collar diners are about as viable as bowling leagues and drive-ins.

Yet beginning in 2017, even the corporate obsessed CEOs and investors who run the exchanges have been tracking the uptick in independent diners — roughly 5% per annum, two percentage points higher than the national and international chains.

While some of the increase is owed to a strong overall economy (which always translates to an increase in dining out) it may also have to do with a divided nation in search of localized, personalized settings where patrons know and more easily engage one another.

Whatever the causes, this subtle but real shift toward Mom and Pops is positively impacting local manufacturers, distributors, growers, management and staff; likewise a given community’s tax base, which in turn is increasing funding for needed services, schools and infrastructure.

Yet another advantage for independents is their usually smaller scale, with the owner more likely to be directly involved with the day-to-day — an important factor in working class culture as patrons and staff consider community minded owners as being “one of us”.

And proponents of locally owned and operated blue collar restaurants also point to the potential for true social integration through such avenues as sports, celebrations, academic scholarships, fighting hunger, fundraising and showing up in the event of natural or other disasters.

It’s not news, this reminder that eating is a political and social act. And it’s not news that where we eat is sometimes equal to what we eat. But as progressives in particular look for ways to counter the ongoing, Trump-enabled corporatization of America, patronizing local eateries gives us one more grassroots way to stand our ground. And chances are, a more interesting meal.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister and substance abuse counselor living in Pittsburgh, Pa. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2019

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