The Rise of the Solo Diner

For a kid, there’s perhaps nothing more mortifying than the prospect of eating lunch alone in the school cafeteria. Solo dining in that formative milieu is seen as a sign of weak social standing, not a triumphant statement of individualism (and certainly not an indication of a deep interest in food!). As a culture we’ve long carried these attitudes about the social dimension of eating into our adult lives—the solitary diner at a restaurant was assumed to be lonely and sad, the…