The Reader’s archive is vast and varied, going back to 1971. Every day in Archive Dive, we’ll dig through and bring up some finds.
Lettuce restaurants is the platform that continues to elevated our food scene, providing an entryway into new cuisines. Plus, they can travel through time. Note Ed Debevic’s, a re-creation of a 1950’s diner, rude servers and all. The staff occasionally danced on the counter, too. Plus, people who didn’t understand the sassy server conceit got pretty offended, which is still pretty funny to watch.
Lettuce restaurants have played a role in bringing diners out and encouraging them to try new things, but they’ve also prepped us, with their rich theater and painstaking attention to detail, for the excesses of the new cuisine.
