{"id":7049735,"date":"2026-08-28T06:18:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T06:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/actually-dining-side-by-side-in-restaurants-is-good\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T06:18:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T06:18:55","slug":"actually-dining-side-by-side-in-restaurants-is-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7049735","title":{"rendered":"Actually, Dining Side-by-Side in Restaurants Is Good"},"content":{"rendered":"


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All this week, the Eater Today newsletter is dedicated to editor <\/em>Hot Takes<\/em><\/strong>, a way to release the pressure valve of crankiness that comes with sweating your way through the end of summer. This story was previously published as part of that series. Subscribe to Eater Today<\/a> to see more of our editors\u2019 boldest opinions about dining culture writ large.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I love the unspoken rules around dining out; admittedly, even more so when they make me feel like I\u2019m earning a gold star for good decorum. I like dressing up for the occasion; I like waiting obediently at the host stand (See? I\u2019m not pushy like other diners<\/em>); and I enjoy the martyrdom<\/s> role of reorganizing the table\u2019s contents as the meal unfolds (distributing food if we\u2019re sharing small plates, consolidating finished plates, pouring carafes).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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My adherence to a certain kind of behavior around the rituals of dining, however, goes out the window when it comes to seating. Specifically, when the option arises for one kind of seating arrangement that\u2019s usually deemed corny: dining side by side.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOh, so you\u2019re side-by-side people\u201d a server at a cocktail bar recently remarked when my partner and I opted to sit not across from each other, but next to each other at our table. Maybe the observation was harmless enough, but it scratched at the unspoken shame around the act of sitting next to your dining companion, whether romantic or platonic. Naysayers may call it cringe, or perhaps even codependent dining \u2014 a perceived act of PDA, one or two tiers short of fully making out at the bar (which \u2014 surprise! \u2014 I am also a fan of).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A duo of diners at Lei in New York City. Credit: Cynthia Liu Leiwine<\/figcaption>Cynthia Liu Leiwine<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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To the haters, I\u2019d ask: Haven\u2019t you ever given in to the corniness of love? And not just love <\/em>with a person, but with the liberating idea that maybe you shouldn\u2019t care what other people think (or how they sit, for that matter), really, and that you deserve to imbue the most routine of dinners with the same romantic energy as a couple feeding each other spaghetti alle vongole on a beach in Positano?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I recently had the pleasure of checking out Cynthia<\/a>, a seasonal tasting-menu restaurant in New York City\u2019s West Village, where I was seated at a side-by-side table with my Eater colleague Nadia Chaudhury. The settee was plush, the couch and table just big enough for two, and chic curtains were suspended from the ceiling to half-obscure the sides of the table for even more privacy. \u201cMy partner and I try to sit side by side in any restaurant we can,\u201d Cynthia\u2019s founder and general manager told me by email about the design choice, \u201cso it was really a merge of the constraints of the space, while also trying to build the perfect table that I would want to sit at […] for those unique little cubbies [in the restaurant\u2019s layout].\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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To my surprise, a good number of my own colleagues also stood up for side-by-side dining when I surfaced the topic in Slack (\u201cIs it really that corny?\u201d). We talked about how nice it is to actually be able to hear your friend in a loud restaurant without shouting. Eater editor-in-chief Stephanie Wu also brought up the fact that your dining companion (meaning: their H&R Block 2009 Team Building Picnic T-shirt) also won\u2019t be in the background of any food pictures, if you\u2019re sitting next to each other and are the type to document each dish.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Somewhere in all of this, I\u2019m convinced that the steely, buttoned-up pilgrim roots of this country are to blame for the side-by-side shame, because this certainly isn\u2019t as big of a taboo for the French, for example. When I sit next to my friend or partner at a restaurant, I am no longer a one-woman island of propriety. I feel more like part of a team, like the two old man Muppets<\/a> that serve as the Greek chorus for every Muppet movie. I\u2019m having dinner, but most of all, I\u2019m in cahoots. And isn\u2019t that better?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the words of Coolio<\/a>, \u201cLife is too short to not have fun; we are only here for a short time compared to the sun and the moon and all that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All this week, the Eater Today newsletter is dedicated to editor Hot Takes, a way to release the pressure valve of crankiness that comes with sweating your way through the end of summer. This story was previously published as part of that series. Subscribe to Eater Today to see more of our editors\u2019 boldest opinions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7049736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156244],"tags":[5876,212260,1416,12767,63618],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7049735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dining-out","tag-dining","tag-dining-out","tag-good","tag-restaurants","tag-sidebyside"],"yoast_head":"\nActually, Dining Side-by-Side in Restaurants Is Good - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7049735\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Actually, Dining Side-by-Side in Restaurants Is Good - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"All this week, the Eater Today newsletter is dedicated to editor Hot Takes, a way to release the pressure valve of crankiness that comes with sweating your way through the end of summer. 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