I dined at a fine dining restaurant in the Bay area that had obviously Googled my name in advance, and found a semi-famous person who shares my name. As I arrived the maitre'd said some things that made no sense, like she hoped the conference I was in town for was going well. But she looked visibly confused, and as a waiter walked me to my table I could see them huddling and glancing at me. Later on I searched and found that my namesake was in fact in town.
I'm going to sound like a grinch here, but the flip side of researching the guests to provide stellar service is that the people who don't show up in the persons of note list may end up getting crappier service. It's like the notorious practice of fashion people not qualifying to buy an overpriced handbag until they've proven their loyalty to the brand by buying previous overpriced handbags.
The reason people come back from overseas trips raving about some cute little trattoria or izakaya joint is rarely because the owner sponsored a penguin, but more because the host achieved a genuinely human connection with the diner.
Having been to a place that does this, before I had an online profile: I think this is only one side of their approach.
During my visit the team were super attentive and conversational and picked up on insanely small details. I’m sure if you weren’t a person of note, you’ll still get the same service but they have a different starting point to deliver it.
Lots of people saying they don’t like the idea of this here. How many people works at companies whose bottom line is driven by researching website visitors to make their ads unforgettable?
Ads are automated, no human involved into the actual research of a specific visitor. It's still creepy, but less personal. Some people can accept this line. But I also guess, with AI this line might be moved again.
The deeper reason is probably, machines are following rules, and they do it equally, focus on their specific job, without any hidden agenda. Humans are different, they have personal opinions and their own agenda, they can even be abusive. This is taking control from the people, and many people don't like losing control.
Does that imply you have to like it or be labeled a hypocrite?
Life isn't a series of black or white choices, but full of multifacetted grey areas where some bad will always be mixed in with the good.
I can very much dislike restaurants sleuthing me even if I have sites with add revenue.
I do not care for their imagined 'marginal service improvent potential'. For excellent service and good food, you do not need to know anything about me beyond my reservation and any food allergies me or my party might volunteer.
So this is basically a modern approach to Danny Meyer's (Union Square Hospitality Group [1]) "collecting the dots" he described in his book Setting the Table [2].
His suggestion was to have staff listen to conversations (and have conversations with guests) and then record any interesting "dots" like a child having a graduation coming up or an anniversary just around the corner. That way on their next visit the staff could be well-prepared.
Click-bait headline makes you think otherwise, but this is just standard hospitality stuff.
I don't know if the times have changed, but if the staff at the restaurant I've been twice knows something I did not tell them, I would not be particularly comfortable with that.
You (the general you) tell the world a lot of things that can be looked up via your email address. Most restaurants take reservations through a system that asks for your email address.
I was at a restaurant a while back and looked over at the hostess' iPad. It had my Twitter avatar on it. I never told them my Twitter handle, but it is associated with the email I used. Do public musings count as telling someone something?
Maybe the next restaurant you (the personal you) go to will look up your email address, find this post and just serve you food.
Pin a tweet to your profile saying you want to be treated as if you are not special. If they read it, then they know how to act, and if they didn't, then they also know nothing about you to treat you special.
>Click-bait headline makes you think otherwise, but this is just standard hospitality stuff.
It's so standard that it's actually part of the training at that universally-known 0 michelin star italian travesty, the olive garden. When I worked there we called it "surprise and delight" because I'm sure if we called it collecting the dots we had to pay Danny Meyer. We were taught to observe our guests and even ask some questions in order to gather intel and then confer w the MoD in order to brainstorm ways to make the guest's visit special. We didn't have the resources to do things like the Pequod's scene from The Bear but what we could do we took great pride in doing. Our store was in the area where a soup called stellini is available. It's basically a chicken noodle soup w little pasta stars, spinach and meatballs, derived from a Pittsburgh-area specialty called wedding soup. Idk who in an olive garden in another state let slip that their large party was from Pittsburgh but the GM from that store called us and we overnighted a bunch of stellini to that restaurant (at corporate's expense, of course) just so they could have the same experience at this other store that they do at home.
Anyone in service-oriented business is or ought to be familiar with the general concepts. I have a whiteboard next to my desk with the names and ages of people's kids.
And for those worried about the creepiness of it all, privacy and discretion are also core concepts of service/hospitality when done well.
I used to work with the lady who fashioned herself a "networking genius" and her secret was keeping a giant one-note with pictures of everyone's pets. She took their pet pics off facebook and instagram and would ask about how they were in meetings. One time she was screensharing and I saw it and asked her what it was. My dog was in there.
Aside from telling the host that you're celebrating your birthday or an anniversary when you make the reservation and getting a special dessert for the occasion, have you ever been at a restaurant where such dots were collected, connected and acted upon?
I haven't, and I've been to 1 & 2 star restaurants.
It's funny to read these comments, of course HN would react this way but since the vast majority of restaurant patrons are so-called normies, it doesn't make much sense to cater to HNers. In fact, most normal people actually prefer that restaurants know their interests and cater to them, it leads to their higher satisfaction and makes the restaurant experience (which includes more than just the taste of the food, for most people at least) more memorable overall.
Not sure I totally buy that. If anything, I’ve found laypeople to be _more_ creeped out by targeted advertising, in particular, than tech people (with the caveat that this is in Europe, and I do think there’s a cultural gap there; Europe’s stricter regulation on this sort of thing doesn’t arise in a vacuum).
There's probably going to be stasi-like secret police(s) at some point in the west in which all of the privacy violation infrastructure currently in place and used to sell you stuff will instead be used to dismantle democracy and cement in place an oppressive dictatorship.
After that system collapses techbros dismissing privacy as a niche concern will be seen as a dangerous relic of less civilized age.
Back in the 1980s both a small italian restaurant in Fremantle West Australia and a larger function restaurant (weddings, etc) further north did the same "social checking" via pre internet local newspapers and gossip circles.
Walking in, everyone was treated like family and the regulars treated as close family they actually liked (the next level up).
There's always been more to good restaurants than just the food.
> "social checking" via pre internet local newspapers and gossip circles
People back then could guess how some information about them "leaked" through gossip, and must have known about what's written in the paper about them. If someone found out that a restaurant has info about them that they thought is 100% private then they would find it creepy too.
Today information about people is stolen from people. Information people assume is 100% private, everything they do on the internet (and even many offline things) even without explicitly "posting" or talking about it ends up corelated by some data broker and sold to the least likeable parties. Having this kind of information even when obtained more legitimately just feels like spying to people and is creepy or repulsive by association.
For any restaurant most of this info is passed on by family to make the experience of the event (birthday, anniversary, etc.) more enjoyable. A regular customer celebrating something probably expects and enjoys some level of familiarity and won't ask too many questions or feel betrayed.
From the article, having a CRM, checking public social media, and getting info from the guests themselves is probably fine and even expected for all but a few exceptions.
Many people do hold that opinion of fine dining restaurants, yes, but normal people do go to them is only because there aren't enough snobs to sustain them.
I don't see what's so normal about any of this. In the past your friends would just mention a few hints while making the reservation... and people still do this now.
If they need to scan your social media, that speaks volumes about how you socialize and the quality of those interactions. Plenty of "normal" people don't want this either. The thoughts mean more coming from your friends than a creepy restaurant.
People want the benefits of interacting in public without the cost of being scrutinized and manipulated. When they post in public, they are not, in their minds, giving people permission to cyberstalk them and build out a profile. Legally, it's sort of the case that they're granting people that permission. But not morally.
If I was talking to a group of friends in real life, and I realized someone in the group was developing an obsession and closely keeping track of everything I said and subjecting it to endless scrutiny, I would be super creeped out. Even though they had every legal right to do that.
I understand that to some extent my friends build a profile of me in their heads and use it to anticipate like, if I want to go to an event with them. But that's not really a difference of degree, there's a phase change when it becomes an obsession and it becomes a difference of kind.
Similarly sometimes retail workers get to know my taste and will point out some item I would be interested in. Sometimes that makes me uncomfortable, but because I'm shy, not because they did anything wrong. If I learned they were reading my social media profile, it would start feeling uncomfortably close to the plot of The Menu.
> People want the benefits of interacting in public without the cost of being scrutinized and manipulated. When they post in public, they are not, in their minds, giving people permission to cyberstalk them and build out a profile. Legally, it's sort of the case that they're granting people that permission. But not morally.
That's honestly their problem, not the social media's, which clearly ask you whether you want certain content public or private and also remind you to update your privacy settings every few months. Your analogy is not correct, it's more akin to speaking in a public forum within earshot of others then getting weirded out that other people can hear you for some reason; go to a private place if you want a private conversation. It's not an actual moral issue, it's a misunderstanding of public vs private in the first place, which causes those in your example to think it's a moral issue.
It is considered rude to listen to other people's conversations in public. While it's wise not to say anything in public that shouldn't be overheard, that doesn't mean it isn't rude to eavesdrop.
It's not a moral issue but it is an ethical issue. I meant morally as in "in spirit" even if it's not illegal. Sorry if that was confusing wording.
(For what it's worth, this behavior of restaurants is not on my radar as a priority, and I'm making no calls to action. I was responding to GP's confusion and trying to provide an explanation. I wouldn't support legislation to make it illegal for restaurants to Google you or something.)
Okay, maybe I will frame it another way. Public social media is like shouting your content on a public square to anyone who wants to view it. Eavesdropping is the wrong analogy here, as it is more a publishing of your own personalized newspaper that anyone can read if they so chose. To then expect privacy from that is unreasonable, hence why I call it the user's problem, of false expectations despite repeatedly being told to the contrary by the social media service itself. There is nothing unethical about reading said newspaper if you are giving it out freely, that is indeed the expected response from an onlooker on the public square.
Let's say you get a notification from Facebook that an ex liked a post of yours from a year ago.
Were they authorized to do that? Sure. Is that creepy? Most people would find that creepy.
Everyone knows you could read every post that they ever put out there. There is an expectation that you know that's inappropriate.
I know that if I engage in discussion on the Internet, there's a good chance someone is going to get bent out of shape about something pretty innocuous I said. They have every right to do so. I still think they're a jerk every time. Is that a me problem? It's something I accept as a cost of doing business, but I think it's actually a them problem. (You've been perfectly civil, this isn't throwing shade, just an example I thought all of us could relate to.)
It is generally understood that we are able to do things that we probably shouldn't. Civil inattention makes the world go round.
No, if you don't want people to read every post put out there, do not make them public. There is no use in thinking someone is a jerk if you willingly allow them to do so, i.e., if they're an ex, why would or should they have access to your page in the first place? If you hadn't blocked them or removed them, then, again, it's your fault, as I stated initially.
Do not expect privacy in a public forum, it is simply not how the world works and thinking otherwise just sets you up for disappointment, or even worse, actual harm (say, a stalker seeing your complete address because you did not deign to make that information private). I really don't get why people argue about this concept, the solution is literally right there to fix but it seems that people perform mental gymnastics to not fix the root issue but instead call it a host of names like "creepy," an "expectation" of being "inappropriate," "being a jerk," a "moral issue," or "unethical." No, just fix the damn problem once and for all and be done with it.
That's good advice, which is irrelevant to the discussion of why people feel the way they do. I don't think we actually disagree on anything. I think you understand what I'm saying but would prefer to use my comments as a launchpad to express judgments about social media users than to discuss the why, and I just have no interest in that.
I took "confusion" in the original comment to mean "I'm curious why this is." You seem to be saying you "don't get it" to mean that they're stupid for making different decisions about the cost versus benefit of social media use, or for wanting to reduce that cost. Again, just not something I'm interested in discussing further.
I did not write the original "confusion" comment by the way, not sure if you saw that, you will have to ask JumpCrisscross why they're confused. That being said, what is your opinion on why people feel the way they do?
Relating to your second paragraph, it seems, at least to me, that the answer to "I'm curious why this is" is genuinely related to ignorance or lack of interest in changing their privacy settings, rather them them being stupid per se (if you want to define "stupid" to mean so, then I guess you can but that's not my intention).
I see. It seems that I fundamentally disagree with your analogies, premises and therefore conclusions. As I said in another thread, real life and online are not the same, the general public does not have the same grievances of one and the other (e.g., they may find it fine to stalk people's social media (or be stalked) and not physically stalk someone in real life (or be stalked)). My point is that only on HN (and technologists in general) do people believe otherwise, and I am pointing out that their feelings do not extend to the public at large.
Any disagreements I have seen to the contrary on these threads seem to be just another example of my point being proven (as no one has really brought up any good reasoning to why they equate real life to social media), as it seems people here cannot think of themselves as merely a vocal minority not representative of the larger population.
I think it's bizarre and incorrect to think of social interactions online and in person as fundamentally different. I think this idea that only technologists understand or care is patronizing.
In general, I see people doing things online that they would not do offline, in much the same way one acts professionally at a workplace while not so at home, they're simply different spaces, so that is why I ask why they are different.
The point about technologists is not meant to be patronizing, it's a trend I've seen. The article itself shows that people seem to be "mind blown" by such restaurant social media stalking, but I doubt they'd be so if a restaurant followed them around in person.
Hence, I see evidence of the two types of interactions being different while I do not see any evidence, in this thread or others, of them being the same, that is why I made the top level comment that I did.
Anyway, this is becoming a long thread and I don't think there's much to be said further on my side. I hope you have a good day.
> When they post in public, they are not, in their minds, giving people permission to cyberstalk them and build out a profile.
Everyone I know has dove into the social histories of new dates, friends, coworkers, etc. I simply cannot believe that the "normal public" doesn't recognize that their behavior, which they discuss with friends, can be replicated by others.
You can know about a downside to doing something, still decide to do it, and still publicly say that there shouldn't be that downside. That doesn't even make you a hypocrite.
Sometimes I drive places. I know that it's dangerous. I accept that risk. But I'll still say people shouldn't be reckless drivers and that we should make the roads safer.
And I certainly am not, by accepting the risk of driving, giving someone permission to drive drunk and wreck into me. That'd be a crazy interpretation, right? So what's the difference here?
I've never met someone who thinks social media is an unalloyed good. I also don't see how you can simultaneously argue they're aware of it and okay with it, but also their position is founded in their ignorance.
I'm talking specifically about restaurant stalking, not all of the mechanisms of social media.
> I also don't see how you can simultaneously argue they're aware of it and okay with it, but also their position is founded in their ignorance.
Wrong person, I am clarifying vineyardmike's point, not my own. Even still, one can know something in the abstract, that their profile can also be stalked, but not in the particulars, that someone they dislike is actively stalking them.
If you talk to your friends in person in a public space, would you be comfortable with restauranteurs stealthily following you around and analyzing your conversations? Why is social media any different?
There are clearly different degrees to which information that is presented in a public space is expected to be disseminated to strangers. Simply being "made public" doesn't necessarily invite invasive spying on every detail of your public actions
> If you talk to your friends in person in a public space, would you be comfortable with restauranteurs stealthily following you around and analyzing your conversations? Why is social media any different?
Exactly, there is no expectation of privacy in a public place, so your friends should go to a private place if they want a private conversation (and similarly not have public social media profiles), not talking within earshot of others and expecting privacy, that people would close their ears while one talks. Restaurants, stores, and other such areas are explicitly not private places, I can't tell you the number of times I can hear embarrassing stories with no extra effort in my part, simply because people talk loud enough to hear.
Sure, but my question isn't whether you can expect perfect privacy in a public place or not. Obviously you can not, but we live in a trust-based society. My question is whether you think it is socially acceptable to abuse that trust. If it isn't in public, then it shouldn't be on social media either.
> If it isn't in public, then it shouldn't be on social media either.
That is exactly what I'm saying so I'm not sure we disagree. Don't put things on social media you don't want people to see, or at least make your profiles private, because people can and will look and you can't expect otherwise.
I think you're still answering a different question than I'm asking.
We certainly agree that social media and in-person conversations in public spaces have the same expectation of privacy, but that's not the point I'm getting at.
What I am asking is, don't you think it would be considered inappropriate to spy on such conversations even though it's technically and legally possible to do so?
Our judgments as to what is considered socially acceptable behaviour aren't strictly ruled by what is technically or legally possible, nor should they be.
No, I don't find it inappropriate, nor would I call it spying at all. I wrote in another comment that I consider social media searching more like yelling in a public square and thinking that anyone who overhears your shouting is "spying" on you. That is essentially exactly what one is doing when they post publicly on social media.
And if social media users in general broadly disagree with you about that (which seems to be the case, given the confusion), who's to say who is right about this totally subjective standard by which we judge appropriateness? Isn't it society at large which gets to decide societal principles?
Sure, but I don't believe they do disagree though, as I stated in my initial comment that it's generally only those on HN who disagree, a vocal minority. The article shows how regular people don't care, they find it even better service than normal to be catered to. So if that's the case, by your logic, we should agree that it is appropriate, right?
You might be right that this isn't a particularly good example, but I'm not convinced that finding this to be inappropriate is an opinion that's just limited to technologists. I would be interested to see the reader comments on an article like this (but it seems they don't have those on sfgate).
People post videos of others in public all the time, do you think they ask every single person on YouTube to sign a consent waiver to be filmed? There's no "gotcha" as you're implying, those are all things people do already without creepiness.
Is that not also voyeurism? There is a difference between the real world and online, to most normal people, hence my initial comment saying generally only HNers seem to equate the two.
The creepy part isn't what, but why. The article later mentions a place that is "old school" and actually talks to their patrons.
If the goal is to attract and keep patrons, especially at a high end restaurant where details matter, I think some formalities are still reasonably expected.
> If the goal is to attract and keep patrons, especially at a high end restaurant where details matter, I think some formalities are still reasonably expected.
Read the article, this sort of social media profile research is what people like, and this is what attracts and keeps patrons, memorable experiences versus not. Again, this is why I said normal people don't care, only on HN do I see argument about this.
You're proving my point. Only do people on HN care, I've never heard of anyone "normal" expressing concern over this sort of restaurant policy, and doubly so if they made their entire account public in the first place. By all means, friends can mention a few hints, but that doesn't mean that restaurants won't do their own research.
> If they need to scan your social media, that speaks volumes about how you socialize and the quality of those interactions.
No, it doesn't, and I don't see how you came to the conclusion that if a restaurant had to scan my social media that it says anything about how I socialize. People don't just socialize only on social media, you know.
All I'm saying is if I'm important to the business they should take the time to know me in person, not try to leverage technology to make this more efficient. The customer is not cattle.
If my friends care, they will know what to surprise me with better than someone who glanced online as a rote part of their job.
I would prefer the restaurant to know that which is relevant, which is I would tell them anything which is relevant (for the specific order I am making at that time, which might or might not be the same next time), when I go to that restaurant. They do not necessarily need to know my name in order for this to work.
Sounds like the site thinks you're an AI bot, I tried on Firefox and Chrome with an ad blocker and it loads just fine for me. Are you running any VPNs etc?
Aside: I keep hearing of "AI bot" detection, but how does such a detector know that the script (if I may use this term instead of bot) uses ML (or some similar technique that falls under the AI umbrella) and why is that worse than (or noteworthy relative to) one that doesn't in the context of blocking?
It's not that it uses ML, it's that it is operated by an AI company. It so happens that those companies are hostile and are ignoring robots.txt and sending requests way faster than would be polite.
I'm your typical HN, tecchie, paranoid, privacy-obssessed "don't track me" nerd.
But I have absolutely no problem with haute cuisine restaurants doing this.
There's a few reasons that make this special, and in a completely different universe than being tracked online.
1. Most people, my wife and I included, seldom go to haute cuisine restaurants. When we do, it is a very special, once in a lifetime experience.
2. Restaurants are not staffed by hackers and advertising engineers. They are going to start with opt-in questionnaires that you will fill out when you make your reservation. That questionnaire will often come in one of two forms: a) they will just ask you verbally when you phone or b) they'll send you a package when you make your reservation. That package is usually pretty special unto itself. It's going to feel like a welcome package, and they are going to invite you to share anything that you think is helpful, entirely voluntarily. Typically they'll ask about food preferences and dietary restrictions... but I mean, they'll get a lot just by giving you a text field that asks "Are you celebrating a special occasion, or anything else you want to share?" You're free to put whatever you want in there, and leave anything else out.
3. Now we get to the social media part. This is doing a little bit extra above what most haute cuisines have done in the past. But remember - they can only find what you make public. They're not like, DM'ing people on your friends' lists etc. or hiring a private investigator to stalk you.
Once you're in the door, the idea of remembering that you were there before and jotting down your preferences etc. so that if you return they can make you feel even that more special... this isn't McDonald's, or even a fancy steak house, that we're talking about. This is a place that most people - if they go at all - are going to go ONCE. So people who return are extremely special and to show them that level of "we give a fuck about you" is what sets these restaurants apart.
One experience that my wife and I had was at Victoria & Albert's at Disney's Grand Floridian resort. We spent $2,000 on that meal. Why? Because it was our belated honeymoon. We were highschool sweethearts, got married and had kids really young and were extremely poor for most of our marriage... so we saved up and it was once in a lifetime. For that money... this level of service is a huge part of how they go above and beyond to make their patrons feel like it's worth it. If most people felt freaked out by it, that some personal boundary was being crossed ... it would be the last thing they do. But they realize that your typical dining experience is pretty impersonal. That if you're going to shell out that much money on a dinner... it needs to be more than just the world's best food.
Thank you for this comment. I've been to a lot of Michelin (and other fine dining) restaurants and this is how I've seen it play out too. People are generally delighted when service like this happens, not creeped out as lots of commenters here seem to imply.
And this, "they can only find what you make public. They're not like, DM'ing people on your friends' lists etc. or hiring a private investigator to stalk you," has been exactly what I've been saying on this thread too, but somehow people think they should be able to keep their profile public yet not have people read through it; that's literally what the word public means.
The title seems ominous but the article itself is about how a fancy restaurant will go out of it's way to make you feel special. They're perusing your social media for clues.
In the past your spouse or kid would call and let the maitre'd know it was special; now I guess it's a job for someone on staff.
It’s really great that the most successful people in Silicon Valley disregard the social implications of their work. Arguably that’s what makes them so successful.
Customer profiling for restaurants is now available as a hosted service.[1] The industry term is "unified guest profile".
"Imagine this: A guest walks into your hotel. The front desk greets them by name, already knows they prefer a room away from the elevator, and offers a complimentary drink, the same cocktail they ordered at your rooftop bar during their last stay. At breakfast the waiter suggests asks if the guest wants the usual omelet or the menu to try something new, and at checkout, they’re offered a late checkout because their flight doesn’t leave until 8 p.m.
That’s not sci-fi. That’s what happens when your guest data systems actually talk to each other."[2]
> Imagine this: A guest walks into your hotel. The front desk greets them by name, already knows they prefer a room away from the elevator, and offers a complimentary drink, the same cocktail they ordered at your rooftop bar during their last stay
> at checkout, they’re offered a late checkout because their flight doesn’t leave until 8 p.m
This would honestly be amazing. Most hotels I've seen don't even want to clean the room as often, and try to minimize the need for front-desk staff.
Everyone hand-wringing over this forgets that learning about you is one thing, but using it requires spending money on making the guest happy, and most businesses won't do that, so they won't pay to collect and process that info.
If they're already vetting your social media, they can also start refusing service based upon religious or political leanings displayed in your posts. No slope (slippery or otherwise) is required.
Imagine making reservations for a family dinner but being turned away at the door because the restaurant found a post (in support/critical) of Trump or one of his policies. The restaurant would be completely within its rights to do so, even if it seems a stupid and pointless business decision to cut clientele in half.
I have a friend that just got kicked out of his apartment, because his landlord learned that he has a very different political leaning. To answer the inevitable questions, he was on a month-to-month lease, and his landlord is a cop, so yeah, he’s screwed.
He’s also very politically outspoken on social media. I have suggested, to no avail, that he tone it down. This may do the trick.
There’s a price to be paid for being on stage, all the time. I wonder how many people have lost (or failed to get) jobs, because of stuff they’ve posted on LinkedIn (or here). I know a couple of teachers lost jobs, because they posted pictures of themselves, on vacation, with drinks in their hands.
I agree. I think the teachers losing their jobs was ridiculous.
To be fair, though, this chap is just a bit left of Mao Zhedong. He posts shit on Facebook, like ACAB. He thought that because he has his rantings restricted to friends-only, they will somehow stay sequestered.
I wonder what lesson the friend learned from this, probably that it reinforces their opinions on cops rather than learning to tone it down as you said. People don't understand that the internet is forever, don't post things you don't want people seeing.
// There’s a price to be paid for being on stage, all the time
No, there's a price to be paid for espousing values outside of the Overton Window - and there always will be in the absence of continuously exercised civil rights.
The last time there was this level of collective punishment and erosion of civil rights (with self-policing sycophants pleading for clemency with the abusers) it was known as McCarthyism. Given that McCarthy’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn, was Trump’s core mentor and lodestone on the American Real Politik, it's easy to chart the ideological fingerprints across the decades.
Clay Risen’s book 'Red Scare' represents a comprehensive overview of the many mechanisms of repression that made the Red Scare possible - from executive orders and congressional-committee hearings to conservative control of vital media outlets - all of which can be directly mapped to the actions of the current cabinet.
//I wonder how many people have lost (or failed to get) jobs, because of stuff they’ve posted on LinkedIn (or here). I know a couple of teachers lost jobs, because they posted pictures of themselves, on vacation, with drinks in their hands.
It starts with the public 'admissions', the low-hanging fruit. Then you get the private investigators leaning on soft-sources for anything that can use as dirt or parallel construction.
The FBI had the Responsibilities Program - where they would share information with PTAs and local school boards. You know: ‘This teacher has a background that’s kind of suspect,’ ‘Here’s a list of books that you want to remove from your library.’
How long until the photo used as grounds-for-termination contains a same-sex couple, or a possible illegal immigrant, or Jerome Powell?
So you’re imagining an unlikely, stupid, and pointless future to justify disliking a well-meaning, positive, friendly present?
I don’t get it. Is the slippery slope that irresistible? Like should I be opposed to all good things in reality because jt is possible to imagine someone pointlessly doing a strange riff on them that I wouldn’t like?
it's now a vaguer title, perhaps even more ominous because personally my immediate thought was "oh they're collaborating with advertising companies aren't they" before actually clicking on the article
Reminds me of The Bear which has scenes like this. It is quite common in higher end restaurant, like those at the Michelin level to customize the experience for each guest (at least to a small degree, not necessarily changing out the entire menu for them).
Reminding one of something seems like it would exclude directly surfacing or naming the thing, because reminding implies a network hop between the one doing the reminding and the thing one is being reminded of.
It was a somewhat sardonic response to "reminds me of The Menu," I was specifically referencing the actual media that was in the article itself. The words "reminds me of" in this case weren't actually related to any reminder, it was a repetition of the prior comment. You can think of it as similar to the phrase "it's almost as if," as in, the user of that phrase already does know whatever they say next is true but the phrase itself is meant to be a sort of slight mockery of whatever preceded it.
"Forks", the episode from the second season of The Bear, remains my most favorite episode of the series and I believe is the highest rated episode of the entire series. Also love how the episode ended.
Literally a tiny island that people travel to and stay at the inn just to eat dinner. When you're there, it appears that the staff outnumber patrons about two to one.
My wife and I went there for an anniversary dinner (and breakfast the next morning). It was an incredible experience. Certainly the best meal of my life and one of the best evenings.
But I watched The Menu later and that movie hit a little too close to home.
Yeah, the creepy chef taking advantage of his staff also reinforces The Menu vibe of the place. It sucks that Blaine Wetzel is apparently a dirtbag because holy crap could that place put together a dinner.
> It sucks that Blaine Wetzel is apparently a dirtbag because holy crap could that place put together a dinner
I totally support voting with your wallet
I don't really understand the outcome that people want to occur with cancelled people. Ostracized from society ... permanently? What we have now where its not thought out at all but some kind of professional harm is put on a pedestal as accountability?
perhaps some sort of society could be envisioned where even people who have demonstrated they cannot be trusted with their professional responsibilities don't have to worry about a place to sleep and food to eat as a result of such evidently necessary ostracization. if you take care of everyone in your society as a matter of course and principle, you gain the ability to simply remove people from positions they abuse without doing ongoing violence to them by preventing them from immediately finding further positions to abuse. under capitalism, these are linked, which is to everyone's misfortune.
The French Laundry is very fancy and expensive but it is ultimately just extremely well prepared french cuisine with excellent service and wine. It doesn't focus on the experimental or high concept stuff that many younger haute cuisine restaurants have become known for and which is taken to the extreme in The Menu.
That’s complete rubbish. What of the sushi chef who has no knowledge or experience with French cuisine or someone who has mastered how to make a great taco? Would you not consider them masters of their craft, because I sure would.
Why both of them? They are both braised meat dishes. They test roughly the same skills and knowledge. Surely if you wanted to pick two french dishes you'd pick two that cover a wider set of skills.
They are also both dishes that are highly forgiving. You can elevate them by replacing the vegetables used in the braise with precisely cooked ones in the final product, by balancing the braising liquid properly, and by getting the final braising liquid to the right consistency but this is largely procedural and involves balancing fewer different elements than sauces that involve spiciness in addition to sweet, sour, and savory.
I think someone who knows those dishes like the back of their hand would make significantly better sushi than me. On the other hand, I'm willing to bet that someone who just makes burgers probably can make sushi about as well as I could.
Would you expect the best Sushi chefs in the world to be competitive in a professional environment to make French cuisine? My bet is no, they focused their entire career on sushi. Similarly, a professional chef who knows how to make these two dishes really well would not be able to compete with professional sushi chefs without actual training in that specific discipline.
What flexibility? The two dishes you selected are essentially variations of the same theme: a meat braised in wine with typical European produce and seasoning.
If you want flexibility, ask someone to master ramen and filo dough.
I gotta say, I don't have the right personality traits to enjoy this kind of personal attention a lot of the time.
I've had experiences where the counter staff at my daily breakfast place started to recognize me and know what "usual" my order was going to be without my having to say it... and it really weirded me out more than anything else.
Sometimes I just want to be a faceless nobody, forgotten day after day by the businesses I visit and the public spaces I navigate.
> I don't have the right personality traits to enjoy this kind of personal attention a lot of the time
Have friends who work at the Four Seasons. This—low service interaction—is a common type of personalised attention patrons want.
I don’t think there is a social media cue for it. But even as someone who’s fairly extroverted, I got a note indicating I should be left alone if dining alone and reading.
Yeah I get what you mean. I think I'd be a lot more weirded out than delighted if a restaurant I was going to stalked my social media (such as it exists at all), attempted to deduce things I would like from it, and presented me those things at a meal.
Yeah I’m heavily introverted and feel the same way. It establishes a kind of social pressure that if I fail to hold up my side of the relationship I just get anxious
Good opportunity to learn about SingleThread, which is a 90s-style throwback to when it was impossible to learn anything about Japan so people just made things up. Like, they call their customers "chairman of the board" because they just heard a random word somewhere?
Japanese customer service ("omotenashi") is mostly about not listening to your customers. You get exactly what they want to give you and that's it. If you have a dietary restriction they may just kick you out because they won't/can't change the menu.
Japanese customer service (“omotenas”) emphasizes anticipating needs and delivering respectful, consistent service, not improvisation. It can feel rigid (no menu changes), but it’s not about ignoring or dominating it customers. If a place can accommodate a food sensitivity, they usually will. If they truly can’t, they’ll tell you clearly rather than risk doing it wrong. It’s a cultural focus on doing things properly and fairly, not a lack of care or some sort of holier-than-thou feeling.
Yes, the dietary restriction thing has become less of an issue, as there's more immigrants/tourists and more interest in vegan food recently.
But Japanese businesses can be very risk-avoidant, so they're relatively happy to not make a sale if it could possibly cause any trouble, compared to what Westerners might expect.
The penguin example seems kind of overstated, since from the sound of it the restaurant basically just donated a few dollars to WWF, but it's dressed up as how they "adopted a living animal for a guest" and no one's done that before.
I once dined at a Michelin starred restaurant that ended the meal with a surprise for us that made me feel that they must have had listening devices in the establishment (it was based on a comment made when no server was around). In the moment, I was very impressed (and figured maybe it was a common thing in eastern bloc countries lol), but I could definitely see how others would find it creepy.
Edit: removed Bear comment as I misread the article.
The title implies (well, I'd say explicitly states with the word "vetting") that restaurants are trying to filter guests, maybe to avoid troublesome ones with uncouth posts online or something. And many of the comments are replying to that interpretation, based on the unfairness suggested in the title. It's not only clickbait, it's outrage bait, designed to spark anger.
The article itself is about how restaurants have gone above and beyond for some guests where they've been able to tell from their social media that they're celebrating a special occasion or some other thing like that. To make the guests' experience better and memorable.
There's a privacy angle to this, should restaurants do that, slippery slope, etc etc... but many of the comments aren't talking about that. They're responding to the inflammatory title.
I don't think we often get such a clear picture into the why behind online outrage and how clearly manufactured it can often be. I think it's easy to believe people are angry for a good reason, to take the anger "on good faith" in some sense. In this case, with the title being so far from the article, it's clear to see what's going on. And makes one wonder about the rest of the outrage out there.
I couldn’t agree more. Half the reason I posted it was the aggressive title; I was curious to see what would happen, and it was precisely what I expected heh.
The other half of the reason was that I really did think it was an interesting article. But having to keep the title the same was a fascinating social experiment.
You know how you sometimes read a title or a topic and you can infer the kind of commentary a particular topic will have? Even going so far as to expect words like “enshittification” to be used for both stating a point as well as for in-group signaling? Sort of like how opinions are front-loaded even if the article was read? (And very often the opinions are things we’ve heard before from many other people, this is a given).
Well, we’ve entered a period in manufactured outrage on the internet where an audience is primed ahead of time with talking points and perspectives that are deemed allowed, and then these reflexes are triggered over and over by the same kind of articles. And it’s the frenzy that counts.
It used to be confined to FB and other places but the average commenter has changed and so the average commentary has changed.
Articles are increasingly becoming rage bait, moreso than clickbait. I do not know what the appeal is yet but I imagine it’s some mixture of impulsivity that online commenting has enabled, combined with commenters thinking their take is valid/important/whatever. Maybe narcissistic but I can’t say for sure. At any rate, it’s another good way to destroy a community - especially one with self reinforcing mechanism like voting that basically ensures you’re on rails (with apologies to dhh)
Privacy concerns aside, I would be mortified if a restaurant did something special for me. I don't want extra attention. I don't want to have to pretend to be excited about a beverage I don't really care for or a gift I will just throw away.
Now if you will excuse, I see some clouds at which I need to shake my cane.
Didn't worry, they'll find this comment and stick you at an okay booth, provide okay service, and pretend not to recognize you next time you come in. It'll be perfect.
Many moons ago I was celebrating an anniversary with my parents and sister at a smallish, but very good, restaurant downtown.
As we were chatting while waiting for the dessert, the whole restaurant started singing "Happy Birthday", as the waiter (and owner) came with the dessert, sparkler and all.
I sooo wanted to just disappear.
Turned out my mom had told the waiter/owner about the occasion, and he had unbeknownst to my mom gotten all the other guests in on it.
Do you also give a fake name to the barista at Starbucks so they don't track you? Other restaurants can't even be bothered to do that much personalization, and just give you a number (and treat you like one).
Common Cog business newsletter did some articles [1] about how this was implemented in Eleven Madison Park, starting in 2001 when Will Guidara [2] took over.
It is expected that filtering based on digital content will become a thing for a while. It's one of those obvious, but misguided, uses of recent technologies.
I don't know about restaurants, but in regards to other kinds of silos, it is likely that those filters will go down once quality data availability becomes a problem.
In the restaurant analogy, you can say that if the salloon is empty, they'll let people in because they can't survive without them.
I've chosen an abstraction level that I find appropriate for several different contexts that the article might apply to, including the most obvious one (just plain restaurants). I don't have much to work with here.
Like many here, before I read the article I assumed this was intended to be some sort of filtering mechanism... which is a bit dystopian, but IMO the truth is much MUCH more bizarre.
We're talking about a fancy restaurant that researches you and your social media to better cater to you and make you feel "special". I think I'd prefer that this just be an extension of the velvet rope, bouncers have been around for ages, but this feels genuinely creepy.
> “The information is used as a precursor to gain more of an understanding of who our guests are,” general manager Akeel Shah explained to SFGATE. “We may not even use the information, but it gives us a better way to tailor the experience and make it memorable.”
Eewwww, no. Just no. It really feels like someone watched 'The Menu', missed the entire point of the movie, and just thought "Hey wouldn't it be neat if WE knew everything about our customers before they arrived?"
I haven't seen The Menu, but try watching The Bear instead. They demonstrate this level-of-service & mentality and it's much more sincere than you think.
Oh, but what a letdown to have someone watch that as their introduction. One of the very best moments in the entire series but which can only be appreciated by watching the entire series.
The Menu is... overly sincere, I won't spoil it, but it's the "Restaurant as cult environment" movie. In fact the question of lacking sincerity is framed as "the audience casually disregards the immense effort and dedication requires to achieve what you demand."
...Now that's probably using restaurants as a metaphor for the film industry, but either way the point holds. I'm not put off by insincerity, it's forced, false intimacy as a product or a service goal that bothers me. Good food, good (not fawning) service is more than enough for me, I don't need this kind of race-to-the-bottom Michelin stars seem to inspire.
It's can be, at least anecdotally from people who work in prestigeous restaurants, i.e. places with year+ backlog. Owner/operator (frequently back of house) has strong politics and tell front of house to lose resos for certain client profiles.
The last few times I reserved a table at a restaurant, I only gave my first name. They never asked for my full name, would be hard for them to find me on social media. However, I'm an immigrant with a locally uncommon first name, YMMV.
It must be emphasised that they're doing this with public information and presumably whatever else you've implicitly consented to giving them, so I don't see a problem with that. Nonetheless this isn't the experience I'd want from a restaurant, and fortunately there are plenty of others to choose from.
Honestly, this just seems like really creative and earnest hospitality. To summarize the somewhat fluffy piece -
> Kirk also has a gigantic database of each guest — about 115,000 people — and knows how many times they’ve dined at Lazy Bear since it first opened as a supper club in 2009. She then dives into social media and finds extra information that is publicly available to get a sense of who the guests are before they come in. Finally, she puts all the data she’s gathered into a color-coded Google document that every member of the team, front and back of house, studies.
“We get hundreds of emails a day, and the intimate details that some people are willing to share, sometimes we’re like ‘Holy crap. I can’t believe you told us that,’” Booth said. “But then there’s the fun, the literal joy, our team feels when they get to make these special touches with those details.”
--
That sounds great to me! I think some commenters are imagining a kind of Black Mirror meets Berghain meets social credit scenario, but it seems like really none of those things. Cynically, one could perhaps paint it as another clever way for Bay Area folks to convert capital into emotionally emulated human experiences, though even amongst that list I'd consider it one of the more wholesome.
Haha this is fantastic. I suppose we must have been uninteresting guests to these places because we didn't get this degree of personalization but the food was great. A lot of these 3 Mich experiences are experiences and not just a dining alone thing so I totally get it. Fun stuff!
Seems like the potential start of a dystopian nightmare to me.
Wouldn't be better for all concerned if a 2 star restaurant worked at providing better food and service instead of privacy invasion and exploitation of the vain?
I think you totally could replicate these experiences without the restaurant involved. Fun surprises are nice, but the absurdity of having the restaurant provide these kinds of experiences seems tacky.
I don't think I'm alone in wanting the restaurant's personality to be just as much a part of the experience as my own personality. Otherwise, what makes this place more special than any other wanting to pull the same gimmicks?
A baby penguin is not service --- it has no impact on their 2 star rating.
Unless they are on the menu, penguins have no part in the restaurant's mission. It is simple pandering to those who psychologically crave attention. It is put forth as a substitute for the lack of better product and service.
Despite much hype, past a certain point even the highest end food really is... just food.
The service is what people really pay for, and there I agree that there should be much more interesting ideas to elevate the experience than bringing in a baby penguin. I don't see anything in the article as particularly creative.
Would you also recommend these 2 restaurants if they ignored you for 30 minutes before taking your order, then brought your drinks late after you've already finished your meal? There's a lot more to a good restaurant experience than consistently making delicious tasting food. It's definitely not that simple.
That's ok, you'll get the same treatment everyone else got before they started this trend. "Normies" with their lives on the standard socials will get extra attention or special treatment at no detriment to you.
The example in the article is about getting to know your patrons so no social presence would be fine, but for what you're talking about with actual filtering no social presence would be an immediate rejection so I wouldn't be so
smug.
What does being rich have anything to do with this?
You seem to think SMB rejecting you is only a problem for them, have you considered that them rejecting you also means that you don't get service from them?
Maybe I’ll start taking pictures of the owners kids playing in the yard so I can establish a better relationship with the business and get better service.
There's a fundamental difference - restaurants checking if you like wine on Instagram to enhance service is optional and consequence-free, while China's system is mandatory with significant legal and financial penalties.
Until they start denying people service because they expressed support for the wrong political party or took the wrong side on a divisive social issue.
Their social credit system doesn't actually exist in the way most people think it does, it was a top down mandate that each province was expected to implement in their own way, often without coordination.
I dined at a fine dining restaurant in the Bay area that had obviously Googled my name in advance, and found a semi-famous person who shares my name. As I arrived the maitre'd said some things that made no sense, like she hoped the conference I was in town for was going well. But she looked visibly confused, and as a waiter walked me to my table I could see them huddling and glancing at me. Later on I searched and found that my namesake was in fact in town.
Great idea! I will now be Michael Bolton for the purposes of restaurant reservations.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YX7R9M-Taik
The endgame is that you get a custom menu with customized prices.
I have a name that’s completely unique, except for some well known European scholar in a highly specialized field of medicine.
One day the scholar visted my city to give a lecture, and I seriously considered attending and causing some type of trouble.
But whatever fun I would have it’s not worth sitting through a lecture on some chemical process in the lower blah blah blah blah.
Are you probably related then? Or is it just that your first name is extremely unique?
My first name is religious - so most people have heard it - but it’s almost never given anymore. Kind of like “Methuselah.”
My last name is historically Mediterranean, but has become extinct in its place of origin.
However some 20th century spelling reforms resulted in Germans and Scandinavians having identically spelled last names.
This makes it very hard to identify the ethnicity of someone who has it.
Very unlikely we are related.
I appreciate your response, it is satisfyingly thorough.
hash collision
Sounds like a (fusion) menu item.
https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-how-to-make-the-bes...
Hah....but these kind of places serve something better than hash.
I'm going to sound like a grinch here, but the flip side of researching the guests to provide stellar service is that the people who don't show up in the persons of note list may end up getting crappier service. It's like the notorious practice of fashion people not qualifying to buy an overpriced handbag until they've proven their loyalty to the brand by buying previous overpriced handbags.
The reason people come back from overseas trips raving about some cute little trattoria or izakaya joint is rarely because the owner sponsored a penguin, but more because the host achieved a genuinely human connection with the diner.
Having been to a place that does this, before I had an online profile: I think this is only one side of their approach.
During my visit the team were super attentive and conversational and picked up on insanely small details. I’m sure if you weren’t a person of note, you’ll still get the same service but they have a different starting point to deliver it.
The restaurants at this tier aren’t giving anyone bad service.
Service is a big component of being a Michelin starred restaurant.
Lots of people saying they don’t like the idea of this here. How many people works at companies whose bottom line is driven by researching website visitors to make their ads unforgettable?
Both kinds of people are here. People who complain about social media, arms, pollution etc and people whose job contributes to it.
There’s no point in expecting a homogeneous experience here.
Ads are automated, no human involved into the actual research of a specific visitor. It's still creepy, but less personal. Some people can accept this line. But I also guess, with AI this line might be moved again.
The deeper reason is probably, machines are following rules, and they do it equally, focus on their specific job, without any hidden agenda. Humans are different, they have personal opinions and their own agenda, they can even be abusive. This is taking control from the people, and many people don't like losing control.
Does that imply you have to like it or be labeled a hypocrite?
Life isn't a series of black or white choices, but full of multifacetted grey areas where some bad will always be mixed in with the good.
I can very much dislike restaurants sleuthing me even if I have sites with add revenue.
I do not care for their imagined 'marginal service improvent potential'. For excellent service and good food, you do not need to know anything about me beyond my reservation and any food allergies me or my party might volunteer.
Of course you can like your targeted ads/data collection and not the restaurant's targeted experience...the restaurant isnt paying you!
So yes you're a hypocrite, but no one really cares--most people are.
In fact, many people on HN work for Google.
So this is basically a modern approach to Danny Meyer's (Union Square Hospitality Group [1]) "collecting the dots" he described in his book Setting the Table [2].
His suggestion was to have staff listen to conversations (and have conversations with guests) and then record any interesting "dots" like a child having a graduation coming up or an anniversary just around the corner. That way on their next visit the staff could be well-prepared.
Click-bait headline makes you think otherwise, but this is just standard hospitality stuff.
[1] https://www.ushg.com/
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitalit...
I don't know if the times have changed, but if the staff at the restaurant I've been twice knows something I did not tell them, I would not be particularly comfortable with that.
You (the general you) tell the world a lot of things that can be looked up via your email address. Most restaurants take reservations through a system that asks for your email address.
I was at a restaurant a while back and looked over at the hostess' iPad. It had my Twitter avatar on it. I never told them my Twitter handle, but it is associated with the email I used. Do public musings count as telling someone something?
Maybe the next restaurant you (the personal you) go to will look up your email address, find this post and just serve you food.
So how do we people that don't like it get the restaurant to recognize that reacting to our Twitter is making the experience worse for us?
The defense is that it's to make the experience better, the reaction is that it won't...
If you don't want restaurants/customer service/other people to read your social media posts, don't post or make your posts private.
That's not responsive to my point.
I didn't say I don't want them to read them. I said I don't want them to provide me evidence that they read them.
Pin a tweet to your profile saying you want to be treated as if you are not special. If they read it, then they know how to act, and if they didn't, then they also know nothing about you to treat you special.
I know where you live.
I saw you enter your apartment, it's public information. But I bet you'd feel pretty unsafe hearing that.
>Click-bait headline makes you think otherwise, but this is just standard hospitality stuff.
It's so standard that it's actually part of the training at that universally-known 0 michelin star italian travesty, the olive garden. When I worked there we called it "surprise and delight" because I'm sure if we called it collecting the dots we had to pay Danny Meyer. We were taught to observe our guests and even ask some questions in order to gather intel and then confer w the MoD in order to brainstorm ways to make the guest's visit special. We didn't have the resources to do things like the Pequod's scene from The Bear but what we could do we took great pride in doing. Our store was in the area where a soup called stellini is available. It's basically a chicken noodle soup w little pasta stars, spinach and meatballs, derived from a Pittsburgh-area specialty called wedding soup. Idk who in an olive garden in another state let slip that their large party was from Pittsburgh but the GM from that store called us and we overnighted a bunch of stellini to that restaurant (at corporate's expense, of course) just so they could have the same experience at this other store that they do at home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clienteling
Anyone in service-oriented business is or ought to be familiar with the general concepts. I have a whiteboard next to my desk with the names and ages of people's kids.
And for those worried about the creepiness of it all, privacy and discretion are also core concepts of service/hospitality when done well.
I used to work with the lady who fashioned herself a "networking genius" and her secret was keeping a giant one-note with pictures of everyone's pets. She took their pet pics off facebook and instagram and would ask about how they were in meetings. One time she was screensharing and I saw it and asked her what it was. My dog was in there.
but this is just standard hospitality stuff
Aside from telling the host that you're celebrating your birthday or an anniversary when you make the reservation and getting a special dessert for the occasion, have you ever been at a restaurant where such dots were collected, connected and acted upon?
I haven't, and I've been to 1 & 2 star restaurants.
If I caught the staff doing that at a hotel or restaurant, I’d black list them. Fuck that.
The eavesdropping part is creepy, otherwise this is more or less part of what makes a good and valued concierge.
To be fair, there's a common pejorative for individuals who "value" unsolicited ad hoc profiling with the objective intent of stroking egos.
Hint: It starts with an N and rhymes with arsonist.
From the business PoV concierge's et al. are hired to stroke and tickle clients in all the ways that express repeat business and money.
It's a strategy chosen over others and in many cases it works, in others, not so much.
That's a slant rhyme at best.
Does narcissist rhyme with arsonist? ("Narsonist")
It's funny to read these comments, of course HN would react this way but since the vast majority of restaurant patrons are so-called normies, it doesn't make much sense to cater to HNers. In fact, most normal people actually prefer that restaurants know their interests and cater to them, it leads to their higher satisfaction and makes the restaurant experience (which includes more than just the taste of the food, for most people at least) more memorable overall.
Not sure I totally buy that. If anything, I’ve found laypeople to be _more_ creeped out by targeted advertising, in particular, than tech people (with the caveat that this is in Europe, and I do think there’s a cultural gap there; Europe’s stricter regulation on this sort of thing doesn’t arise in a vacuum).
> I’ve found laypeople to be _more_ creeped out by targeted advertising, in particular, than tech people
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it" -- Upton Sinclair
Tech people are many orders of magnitude more likely to be getting paid to be "the creeps" by targeting the advertising.
There's probably going to be stasi-like secret police(s) at some point in the west in which all of the privacy violation infrastructure currently in place and used to sell you stuff will instead be used to dismantle democracy and cement in place an oppressive dictatorship.
After that system collapses techbros dismissing privacy as a niche concern will be seen as a dangerous relic of less civilized age.
Yes, it's different in America. Yet even in Europe will Michelin star restaurants do things similar to the article.
Back in the 1980s both a small italian restaurant in Fremantle West Australia and a larger function restaurant (weddings, etc) further north did the same "social checking" via pre internet local newspapers and gossip circles.
Walking in, everyone was treated like family and the regulars treated as close family they actually liked (the next level up).
There's always been more to good restaurants than just the food.
> "social checking" via pre internet local newspapers and gossip circles
People back then could guess how some information about them "leaked" through gossip, and must have known about what's written in the paper about them. If someone found out that a restaurant has info about them that they thought is 100% private then they would find it creepy too.
Today information about people is stolen from people. Information people assume is 100% private, everything they do on the internet (and even many offline things) even without explicitly "posting" or talking about it ends up corelated by some data broker and sold to the least likeable parties. Having this kind of information even when obtained more legitimately just feels like spying to people and is creepy or repulsive by association.
For any restaurant most of this info is passed on by family to make the experience of the event (birthday, anniversary, etc.) more enjoyable. A regular customer celebrating something probably expects and enjoys some level of familiarity and won't ask too many questions or feel betrayed.
From the article, having a CRM, checking public social media, and getting info from the guests themselves is probably fine and even expected for all but a few exceptions.
Exactly. All these other comments are simply wild to me and it's something I'd only see on HN as well.
Maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy, but these places feel designed for snobs, not normies.
Many people do hold that opinion of fine dining restaurants, yes, but normal people do go to them is only because there aren't enough snobs to sustain them.
I am not sure snobs is the right word. It is just a different experience.
I like opera and I like metal but while both are music, it is a completely different live musical experience.
…unless you’re a Queen fan…
That's most of HN
I don't see what's so normal about any of this. In the past your friends would just mention a few hints while making the reservation... and people still do this now.
If they need to scan your social media, that speaks volumes about how you socialize and the quality of those interactions. Plenty of "normal" people don't want this either. The thoughts mean more coming from your friends than a creepy restaurant.
I’m genuinely confused by people who find it creepy that their public social media be scanned and analysed. You made it public!
People want the benefits of interacting in public without the cost of being scrutinized and manipulated. When they post in public, they are not, in their minds, giving people permission to cyberstalk them and build out a profile. Legally, it's sort of the case that they're granting people that permission. But not morally.
If I was talking to a group of friends in real life, and I realized someone in the group was developing an obsession and closely keeping track of everything I said and subjecting it to endless scrutiny, I would be super creeped out. Even though they had every legal right to do that.
I understand that to some extent my friends build a profile of me in their heads and use it to anticipate like, if I want to go to an event with them. But that's not really a difference of degree, there's a phase change when it becomes an obsession and it becomes a difference of kind.
Similarly sometimes retail workers get to know my taste and will point out some item I would be interested in. Sometimes that makes me uncomfortable, but because I'm shy, not because they did anything wrong. If I learned they were reading my social media profile, it would start feeling uncomfortably close to the plot of The Menu.
> People want the benefits of interacting in public without the cost of being scrutinized and manipulated. When they post in public, they are not, in their minds, giving people permission to cyberstalk them and build out a profile. Legally, it's sort of the case that they're granting people that permission. But not morally.
That's honestly their problem, not the social media's, which clearly ask you whether you want certain content public or private and also remind you to update your privacy settings every few months. Your analogy is not correct, it's more akin to speaking in a public forum within earshot of others then getting weirded out that other people can hear you for some reason; go to a private place if you want a private conversation. It's not an actual moral issue, it's a misunderstanding of public vs private in the first place, which causes those in your example to think it's a moral issue.
It is considered rude to listen to other people's conversations in public. While it's wise not to say anything in public that shouldn't be overheard, that doesn't mean it isn't rude to eavesdrop.
It's not a moral issue but it is an ethical issue. I meant morally as in "in spirit" even if it's not illegal. Sorry if that was confusing wording.
(For what it's worth, this behavior of restaurants is not on my radar as a priority, and I'm making no calls to action. I was responding to GP's confusion and trying to provide an explanation. I wouldn't support legislation to make it illegal for restaurants to Google you or something.)
Okay, maybe I will frame it another way. Public social media is like shouting your content on a public square to anyone who wants to view it. Eavesdropping is the wrong analogy here, as it is more a publishing of your own personalized newspaper that anyone can read if they so chose. To then expect privacy from that is unreasonable, hence why I call it the user's problem, of false expectations despite repeatedly being told to the contrary by the social media service itself. There is nothing unethical about reading said newspaper if you are giving it out freely, that is indeed the expected response from an onlooker on the public square.
Let's say you get a notification from Facebook that an ex liked a post of yours from a year ago.
Were they authorized to do that? Sure. Is that creepy? Most people would find that creepy.
Everyone knows you could read every post that they ever put out there. There is an expectation that you know that's inappropriate.
I know that if I engage in discussion on the Internet, there's a good chance someone is going to get bent out of shape about something pretty innocuous I said. They have every right to do so. I still think they're a jerk every time. Is that a me problem? It's something I accept as a cost of doing business, but I think it's actually a them problem. (You've been perfectly civil, this isn't throwing shade, just an example I thought all of us could relate to.)
It is generally understood that we are able to do things that we probably shouldn't. Civil inattention makes the world go round.
No, if you don't want people to read every post put out there, do not make them public. There is no use in thinking someone is a jerk if you willingly allow them to do so, i.e., if they're an ex, why would or should they have access to your page in the first place? If you hadn't blocked them or removed them, then, again, it's your fault, as I stated initially.
Do not expect privacy in a public forum, it is simply not how the world works and thinking otherwise just sets you up for disappointment, or even worse, actual harm (say, a stalker seeing your complete address because you did not deign to make that information private). I really don't get why people argue about this concept, the solution is literally right there to fix but it seems that people perform mental gymnastics to not fix the root issue but instead call it a host of names like "creepy," an "expectation" of being "inappropriate," "being a jerk," a "moral issue," or "unethical." No, just fix the damn problem once and for all and be done with it.
That's good advice, which is irrelevant to the discussion of why people feel the way they do. I don't think we actually disagree on anything. I think you understand what I'm saying but would prefer to use my comments as a launchpad to express judgments about social media users than to discuss the why, and I just have no interest in that.
I took "confusion" in the original comment to mean "I'm curious why this is." You seem to be saying you "don't get it" to mean that they're stupid for making different decisions about the cost versus benefit of social media use, or for wanting to reduce that cost. Again, just not something I'm interested in discussing further.
I did not write the original "confusion" comment by the way, not sure if you saw that, you will have to ask JumpCrisscross why they're confused. That being said, what is your opinion on why people feel the way they do?
Relating to your second paragraph, it seems, at least to me, that the answer to "I'm curious why this is" is genuinely related to ignorance or lack of interest in changing their privacy settings, rather them them being stupid per se (if you want to define "stupid" to mean so, then I guess you can but that's not my intention).
> JumpCrisscross
I'm aware.
> [What] is your opinion
I don't feel the need to repeat myself, but you may refer to this comment, and if you have specific questions I'm happy to answer them.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44555009
> ignorance
Similarly.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44557317
I see. It seems that I fundamentally disagree with your analogies, premises and therefore conclusions. As I said in another thread, real life and online are not the same, the general public does not have the same grievances of one and the other (e.g., they may find it fine to stalk people's social media (or be stalked) and not physically stalk someone in real life (or be stalked)). My point is that only on HN (and technologists in general) do people believe otherwise, and I am pointing out that their feelings do not extend to the public at large.
Any disagreements I have seen to the contrary on these threads seem to be just another example of my point being proven (as no one has really brought up any good reasoning to why they equate real life to social media), as it seems people here cannot think of themselves as merely a vocal minority not representative of the larger population.
I think it's bizarre and incorrect to think of social interactions online and in person as fundamentally different. I think this idea that only technologists understand or care is patronizing.
In general, I see people doing things online that they would not do offline, in much the same way one acts professionally at a workplace while not so at home, they're simply different spaces, so that is why I ask why they are different.
The point about technologists is not meant to be patronizing, it's a trend I've seen. The article itself shows that people seem to be "mind blown" by such restaurant social media stalking, but I doubt they'd be so if a restaurant followed them around in person.
Hence, I see evidence of the two types of interactions being different while I do not see any evidence, in this thread or others, of them being the same, that is why I made the top level comment that I did.
Anyway, this is becoming a long thread and I don't think there's much to be said further on my side. I hope you have a good day.
I feel like the natural conclusion of your line of thought is that the post is still accessible to them via an alt account that you haven't blocked.
That implies the posts are still public, which they shouldn't be in this scenario.
> When they post in public, they are not, in their minds, giving people permission to cyberstalk them and build out a profile.
Everyone I know has dove into the social histories of new dates, friends, coworkers, etc. I simply cannot believe that the "normal public" doesn't recognize that their behavior, which they discuss with friends, can be replicated by others.
Of course they do. I never said otherwise.
You can know about a downside to doing something, still decide to do it, and still publicly say that there shouldn't be that downside. That doesn't even make you a hypocrite.
Sometimes I drive places. I know that it's dangerous. I accept that risk. But I'll still say people shouldn't be reckless drivers and that we should make the roads safer.
And I certainly am not, by accepting the risk of driving, giving someone permission to drive drunk and wreck into me. That'd be a crazy interpretation, right? So what's the difference here?
The point they're making is that you personally perceive it to be a downside while most (the general public) do not.
I've never met someone who thinks social media is an unalloyed good. I also don't see how you can simultaneously argue they're aware of it and okay with it, but also their position is founded in their ignorance.
> unalloyed good
I'm talking specifically about restaurant stalking, not all of the mechanisms of social media.
> I also don't see how you can simultaneously argue they're aware of it and okay with it, but also their position is founded in their ignorance.
Wrong person, I am clarifying vineyardmike's point, not my own. Even still, one can know something in the abstract, that their profile can also be stalked, but not in the particulars, that someone they dislike is actively stalking them.
If you talk to your friends in person in a public space, would you be comfortable with restauranteurs stealthily following you around and analyzing your conversations? Why is social media any different?
There are clearly different degrees to which information that is presented in a public space is expected to be disseminated to strangers. Simply being "made public" doesn't necessarily invite invasive spying on every detail of your public actions
> If you talk to your friends in person in a public space, would you be comfortable with restauranteurs stealthily following you around and analyzing your conversations? Why is social media any different?
Exactly, there is no expectation of privacy in a public place, so your friends should go to a private place if they want a private conversation (and similarly not have public social media profiles), not talking within earshot of others and expecting privacy, that people would close their ears while one talks. Restaurants, stores, and other such areas are explicitly not private places, I can't tell you the number of times I can hear embarrassing stories with no extra effort in my part, simply because people talk loud enough to hear.
Sure, but my question isn't whether you can expect perfect privacy in a public place or not. Obviously you can not, but we live in a trust-based society. My question is whether you think it is socially acceptable to abuse that trust. If it isn't in public, then it shouldn't be on social media either.
> If it isn't in public, then it shouldn't be on social media either.
That is exactly what I'm saying so I'm not sure we disagree. Don't put things on social media you don't want people to see, or at least make your profiles private, because people can and will look and you can't expect otherwise.
I think you're still answering a different question than I'm asking.
We certainly agree that social media and in-person conversations in public spaces have the same expectation of privacy, but that's not the point I'm getting at.
What I am asking is, don't you think it would be considered inappropriate to spy on such conversations even though it's technically and legally possible to do so?
Our judgments as to what is considered socially acceptable behaviour aren't strictly ruled by what is technically or legally possible, nor should they be.
No, I don't find it inappropriate, nor would I call it spying at all. I wrote in another comment that I consider social media searching more like yelling in a public square and thinking that anyone who overhears your shouting is "spying" on you. That is essentially exactly what one is doing when they post publicly on social media.
And if social media users in general broadly disagree with you about that (which seems to be the case, given the confusion), who's to say who is right about this totally subjective standard by which we judge appropriateness? Isn't it society at large which gets to decide societal principles?
Sure, but I don't believe they do disagree though, as I stated in my initial comment that it's generally only those on HN who disagree, a vocal minority. The article shows how regular people don't care, they find it even better service than normal to be catered to. So if that's the case, by your logic, we should agree that it is appropriate, right?
You might be right that this isn't a particularly good example, but I'm not convinced that finding this to be inappropriate is an opinion that's just limited to technologists. I would be interested to see the reader comments on an article like this (but it seems they don't have those on sfgate).
We already have one such comment right here in this thread [0].
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44551109#44560100
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People post videos of others in public all the time, do you think they ask every single person on YouTube to sign a consent waiver to be filmed? There's no "gotcha" as you're implying, those are all things people do already without creepiness.
This is ok to you? You’re a creep. Maybe you’re the guy in this article
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-jarry-park-...
Voyeurism is an actual crime compared to what restaurants in this thread are doing. Don't create a false equivalence where there is none.
What if the restaurant followed you with a drone and took pictures of everything you ate in public for a month?
Is that not also voyeurism? There is a difference between the real world and online, to most normal people, hence my initial comment saying generally only HNers seem to equate the two.
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We've banned this account for repeatedly posting abusive comments and ignoring a previous request to stop.
The creepy part isn't what, but why. The article later mentions a place that is "old school" and actually talks to their patrons.
If the goal is to attract and keep patrons, especially at a high end restaurant where details matter, I think some formalities are still reasonably expected.
> If the goal is to attract and keep patrons, especially at a high end restaurant where details matter, I think some formalities are still reasonably expected.
Read the article, this sort of social media profile research is what people like, and this is what attracts and keeps patrons, memorable experiences versus not. Again, this is why I said normal people don't care, only on HN do I see argument about this.
Why do people walk down the street if they don’t want me to follow them with a drone?
I wonder if there’s ever been a case of mistaken identity. A bear lover instead of a penguin lover for example.
You're proving my point. Only do people on HN care, I've never heard of anyone "normal" expressing concern over this sort of restaurant policy, and doubly so if they made their entire account public in the first place. By all means, friends can mention a few hints, but that doesn't mean that restaurants won't do their own research.
> If they need to scan your social media, that speaks volumes about how you socialize and the quality of those interactions.
No, it doesn't, and I don't see how you came to the conclusion that if a restaurant had to scan my social media that it says anything about how I socialize. People don't just socialize only on social media, you know.
All I'm saying is if I'm important to the business they should take the time to know me in person, not try to leverage technology to make this more efficient. The customer is not cattle.
If my friends care, they will know what to surprise me with better than someone who glanced online as a rote part of their job.
What gave you the impression that they don't also talk to their customers as well?
I would prefer the restaurant to know that which is relevant, which is I would tell them anything which is relevant (for the specific order I am making at that time, which might or might not be the same next time), when I go to that restaurant. They do not necessarily need to know my name in order for this to work.
Read the article, it's a surprise for a reason.
I cannot read the article; it says I need a TollBit Token, which I don't have. If I try to figure out how to do that, then that doesn't work either.
Sounds like the site thinks you're an AI bot, I tried on Firefox and Chrome with an ad blocker and it loads just fine for me. Are you running any VPNs etc?
Aside: I keep hearing of "AI bot" detection, but how does such a detector know that the script (if I may use this term instead of bot) uses ML (or some similar technique that falls under the AI umbrella) and why is that worse than (or noteworthy relative to) one that doesn't in the context of blocking?
It's not that it uses ML, it's that it is operated by an AI company. It so happens that those companies are hostile and are ignoring robots.txt and sending requests way faster than would be polite.
I'd prefer having consent of when and where my data is used.
You consent implicitly and explicitly when you accept the terms of service to make the account.
I'm your typical HN, tecchie, paranoid, privacy-obssessed "don't track me" nerd.
But I have absolutely no problem with haute cuisine restaurants doing this.
There's a few reasons that make this special, and in a completely different universe than being tracked online.
1. Most people, my wife and I included, seldom go to haute cuisine restaurants. When we do, it is a very special, once in a lifetime experience.
2. Restaurants are not staffed by hackers and advertising engineers. They are going to start with opt-in questionnaires that you will fill out when you make your reservation. That questionnaire will often come in one of two forms: a) they will just ask you verbally when you phone or b) they'll send you a package when you make your reservation. That package is usually pretty special unto itself. It's going to feel like a welcome package, and they are going to invite you to share anything that you think is helpful, entirely voluntarily. Typically they'll ask about food preferences and dietary restrictions... but I mean, they'll get a lot just by giving you a text field that asks "Are you celebrating a special occasion, or anything else you want to share?" You're free to put whatever you want in there, and leave anything else out.
3. Now we get to the social media part. This is doing a little bit extra above what most haute cuisines have done in the past. But remember - they can only find what you make public. They're not like, DM'ing people on your friends' lists etc. or hiring a private investigator to stalk you.
Once you're in the door, the idea of remembering that you were there before and jotting down your preferences etc. so that if you return they can make you feel even that more special... this isn't McDonald's, or even a fancy steak house, that we're talking about. This is a place that most people - if they go at all - are going to go ONCE. So people who return are extremely special and to show them that level of "we give a fuck about you" is what sets these restaurants apart.
One experience that my wife and I had was at Victoria & Albert's at Disney's Grand Floridian resort. We spent $2,000 on that meal. Why? Because it was our belated honeymoon. We were highschool sweethearts, got married and had kids really young and were extremely poor for most of our marriage... so we saved up and it was once in a lifetime. For that money... this level of service is a huge part of how they go above and beyond to make their patrons feel like it's worth it. If most people felt freaked out by it, that some personal boundary was being crossed ... it would be the last thing they do. But they realize that your typical dining experience is pretty impersonal. That if you're going to shell out that much money on a dinner... it needs to be more than just the world's best food.
Thank you for this comment. I've been to a lot of Michelin (and other fine dining) restaurants and this is how I've seen it play out too. People are generally delighted when service like this happens, not creeped out as lots of commenters here seem to imply.
And this, "they can only find what you make public. They're not like, DM'ing people on your friends' lists etc. or hiring a private investigator to stalk you," has been exactly what I've been saying on this thread too, but somehow people think they should be able to keep their profile public yet not have people read through it; that's literally what the word public means.
The title seems ominous but the article itself is about how a fancy restaurant will go out of it's way to make you feel special. They're perusing your social media for clues.
In the past your spouse or kid would call and let the maitre'd know it was special; now I guess it's a job for someone on staff.
Until some YC backed SaaS LLM AI automates the process and it becomes table stakes. Then they find other uses for it..
I'm waiting for fully automated writing style recognition that finds all your throwaway accounts and sends you a shakedown letter.
Reproducing Hacker News writing style fingerprinting, by antirez of Redis fame
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43705632
It’s really great that the most successful people in Silicon Valley disregard the social implications of their work. Arguably that’s what makes them so successful.
This was possible before, as the post shows with a previous HN post, nothing to do with Silicon Valley.
'Silicon Valley' here is just proxy for 'self-delusional tech glitterati with a cheap veneer of enlightenment'.
I'm waiting for an AI bot that follows everyone around and points out ideological inconsistencies.
"funny, you were all fine with this when X was doing it as evidenced in <cites specific comments>, care to explain why this is different?".
I suspect HN is already checking IP.
Are we really doing the slippery slope dangers of a high end restaurant going out of their way to delight?
Customer profiling for restaurants is now available as a hosted service.[1] The industry term is "unified guest profile".
"Imagine this: A guest walks into your hotel. The front desk greets them by name, already knows they prefer a room away from the elevator, and offers a complimentary drink, the same cocktail they ordered at your rooftop bar during their last stay. At breakfast the waiter suggests asks if the guest wants the usual omelet or the menu to try something new, and at checkout, they’re offered a late checkout because their flight doesn’t leave until 8 p.m.
That’s not sci-fi. That’s what happens when your guest data systems actually talk to each other."[2]
[1] https://www.hungerrush.com/restaurant-marketing-loyalty/the-...
[2] https://www.hospitalitynet.org/explainer/4127923.html
I like how hotels are either some how the most discrete place regarding someones previous visits or the complete total opposite.
> Imagine this: A guest walks into your hotel. The front desk greets them by name, already knows they prefer a room away from the elevator, and offers a complimentary drink, the same cocktail they ordered at your rooftop bar during their last stay
> at checkout, they’re offered a late checkout because their flight doesn’t leave until 8 p.m
This would honestly be amazing. Most hotels I've seen don't even want to clean the room as often, and try to minimize the need for front-desk staff.
Everyone hand-wringing over this forgets that learning about you is one thing, but using it requires spending money on making the guest happy, and most businesses won't do that, so they won't pay to collect and process that info.
If they're already vetting your social media, they can also start refusing service based upon religious or political leanings displayed in your posts. No slope (slippery or otherwise) is required.
Imagine making reservations for a family dinner but being turned away at the door because the restaurant found a post (in support/critical) of Trump or one of his policies. The restaurant would be completely within its rights to do so, even if it seems a stupid and pointless business decision to cut clientele in half.
I have a friend that just got kicked out of his apartment, because his landlord learned that he has a very different political leaning. To answer the inevitable questions, he was on a month-to-month lease, and his landlord is a cop, so yeah, he’s screwed.
He’s also very politically outspoken on social media. I have suggested, to no avail, that he tone it down. This may do the trick.
There’s a price to be paid for being on stage, all the time. I wonder how many people have lost (or failed to get) jobs, because of stuff they’ve posted on LinkedIn (or here). I know a couple of teachers lost jobs, because they posted pictures of themselves, on vacation, with drinks in their hands.
God forbid that people have lives outside of their job.
I agree. I think the teachers losing their jobs was ridiculous.
To be fair, though, this chap is just a bit left of Mao Zhedong. He posts shit on Facebook, like ACAB. He thought that because he has his rantings restricted to friends-only, they will somehow stay sequestered.
> He thought that because he has his rantings restricted to friends-only, they will somehow stay sequestered.
That's interesting then, how did the landlord find out, through a mutual friend?
Likely. But the landlord is a cop, and he may have done some checking. They have resources.
I see shit copied and pasted from people's private Facebook feeds all the time.
I wonder what lesson the friend learned from this, probably that it reinforces their opinions on cops rather than learning to tone it down as you said. People don't understand that the internet is forever, don't post things you don't want people seeing.
// There’s a price to be paid for being on stage, all the time
No, there's a price to be paid for espousing values outside of the Overton Window - and there always will be in the absence of continuously exercised civil rights.
The last time there was this level of collective punishment and erosion of civil rights (with self-policing sycophants pleading for clemency with the abusers) it was known as McCarthyism. Given that McCarthy’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn, was Trump’s core mentor and lodestone on the American Real Politik, it's easy to chart the ideological fingerprints across the decades.
Clay Risen’s book 'Red Scare' represents a comprehensive overview of the many mechanisms of repression that made the Red Scare possible - from executive orders and congressional-committee hearings to conservative control of vital media outlets - all of which can be directly mapped to the actions of the current cabinet.
//I wonder how many people have lost (or failed to get) jobs, because of stuff they’ve posted on LinkedIn (or here). I know a couple of teachers lost jobs, because they posted pictures of themselves, on vacation, with drinks in their hands.
It starts with the public 'admissions', the low-hanging fruit. Then you get the private investigators leaning on soft-sources for anything that can use as dirt or parallel construction.
The FBI had the Responsibilities Program - where they would share information with PTAs and local school boards. You know: ‘This teacher has a background that’s kind of suspect,’ ‘Here’s a list of books that you want to remove from your library.’
How long until the photo used as grounds-for-termination contains a same-sex couple, or a possible illegal immigrant, or Jerome Powell?
So you’re imagining an unlikely, stupid, and pointless future to justify disliking a well-meaning, positive, friendly present?
I don’t get it. Is the slippery slope that irresistible? Like should I be opposed to all good things in reality because jt is possible to imagine someone pointlessly doing a strange riff on them that I wouldn’t like?
So, yes, is your answer to the preceding question.
It's funny when someone ends up proving your point in their attempt to refute it.
Unlawful in the EU, thankfully. The US seriously needs to revaluate it's data protection laws.
I'm planning to move to Columbia.
I know that high-end restaurants there get extreme in service. That can make me uncomfortable in certain contexts.
Like Columbia, MD? Or the university?
Columbia, South America.
https://archive.ph/o/S25jP/https://cdn.digg.com/wp-content/u...
Colombia. You may need to spell it correctly before you move there. :)
that's a neat map, thanks for sharing
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> and it becomes table stakes.
I see what you did there.
Thanks! We've changed the title above to use a more representative phrase from the article.
it's now a vaguer title, perhaps even more ominous because personally my immediate thought was "oh they're collaborating with advertising companies aren't they" before actually clicking on the article
Reminds me of The Menu.
Reminds me of The Bear which has scenes like this. It is quite common in higher end restaurant, like those at the Michelin level to customize the experience for each guest (at least to a small degree, not necessarily changing out the entire menu for them).
Which itself draws from the book ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’ and iirc the Chicago restaurant ‘Ever’ featured in the show applies this approach.
And the Four Seasons has been recognized for this for many years; it was a case study in business school for me.
(The "Ever" in "The Bear" is a composite of many restaurants).
Good point :) the show’s Ever definitely utilizes it but my understanding is the real one does too.
The Bear is literally the lead-in paragraph for the article
Yes, that is why I mentioned it.
Reminding one of something seems like it would exclude directly surfacing or naming the thing, because reminding implies a network hop between the one doing the reminding and the thing one is being reminded of.
It was a somewhat sardonic response to "reminds me of The Menu," I was specifically referencing the actual media that was in the article itself. The words "reminds me of" in this case weren't actually related to any reminder, it was a repetition of the prior comment. You can think of it as similar to the phrase "it's almost as if," as in, the user of that phrase already does know whatever they say next is true but the phrase itself is meant to be a sort of slight mockery of whatever preceded it.
Exactly. It’s super weird to say “that reminds me of X” immediately after reading about X.
Somehow I don’t think OP actually read the article before commenting.
"Forks", the episode from the second season of The Bear, remains my most favorite episode of the series and I believe is the highest rated episode of the entire series. Also love how the episode ended.
Every second counts.
Going to The French Laundry has many similar to The Menu and felt like it was what the movie was satirizing
The Willows Inn is an even stronger parallel.
Literally a tiny island that people travel to and stay at the inn just to eat dinner. When you're there, it appears that the staff outnumber patrons about two to one.
My wife and I went there for an anniversary dinner (and breakfast the next morning). It was an incredible experience. Certainly the best meal of my life and one of the best evenings.
But I watched The Menu later and that movie hit a little too close to home.
Oh noo I missed the experience
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/willows-inn-closed-allegati...
Yeah, the creepy chef taking advantage of his staff also reinforces The Menu vibe of the place. It sucks that Blaine Wetzel is apparently a dirtbag because holy crap could that place put together a dinner.
> It sucks that Blaine Wetzel is apparently a dirtbag because holy crap could that place put together a dinner
I totally support voting with your wallet
I don't really understand the outcome that people want to occur with cancelled people. Ostracized from society ... permanently? What we have now where its not thought out at all but some kind of professional harm is put on a pedestal as accountability?
perhaps some sort of society could be envisioned where even people who have demonstrated they cannot be trusted with their professional responsibilities don't have to worry about a place to sleep and food to eat as a result of such evidently necessary ostracization. if you take care of everyone in your society as a matter of course and principle, you gain the ability to simply remove people from positions they abuse without doing ongoing violence to them by preventing them from immediately finding further positions to abuse. under capitalism, these are linked, which is to everyone's misfortune.
The French Laundry is very fancy and expensive but it is ultimately just extremely well prepared french cuisine with excellent service and wine. It doesn't focus on the experimental or high concept stuff that many younger haute cuisine restaurants have become known for and which is taken to the extreme in The Menu.
The Menu is specifically satirizing the show Chef's Table [0]. Notice the same sort of music and compositon of the plates as well as the font.
[0] https://youtu.be/BkN9dDGTgtw
Thanks, I was curious
Still creepy.
author doesn't understand the definition of "vetting"
which is par for the course for sfgate/chronicle
Restaurants concentrate too hard on the things that are not food.
If a restaurateur and/or the head chef has any pretensions of greatness, then they must master two French dishes, Coq au Vin, and Boeuf Bourguignon.
Before investing in anything else, these are tollgates.
That’s complete rubbish. What of the sushi chef who has no knowledge or experience with French cuisine or someone who has mastered how to make a great taco? Would you not consider them masters of their craft, because I sure would.
I respect that you at least literally admit that you are gatekeeping.
It is a certain gatekeeping that demands some quantity of flexibility in culinary arts.
To me flexibility in culinary arts would mean that you know dishes from multiple cuisines, not just two dishes from French cuisine.
I'm willing to believe those two dishes represent a wide set of skills and knowledge that would generalize to being a generally skillful cook.
Why both of them? They are both braised meat dishes. They test roughly the same skills and knowledge. Surely if you wanted to pick two french dishes you'd pick two that cover a wider set of skills.
They are also both dishes that are highly forgiving. You can elevate them by replacing the vegetables used in the braise with precisely cooked ones in the final product, by balancing the braising liquid properly, and by getting the final braising liquid to the right consistency but this is largely procedural and involves balancing fewer different elements than sauces that involve spiciness in addition to sweet, sour, and savory.
As someone else noted, I don’t believe these skills would translate to sushi making and we’re talking about chefs here not cooks.
I think someone who knows those dishes like the back of their hand would make significantly better sushi than me. On the other hand, I'm willing to bet that someone who just makes burgers probably can make sushi about as well as I could.
Would you expect the best Sushi chefs in the world to be competitive in a professional environment to make French cuisine? My bet is no, they focused their entire career on sushi. Similarly, a professional chef who knows how to make these two dishes really well would not be able to compete with professional sushi chefs without actual training in that specific discipline.
What flexibility? The two dishes you selected are essentially variations of the same theme: a meat braised in wine with typical European produce and seasoning.
If you want flexibility, ask someone to master ramen and filo dough.
Sounds like someone has never had Massaman curry
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Sounds like someone has never had good Massaman curry
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You're not you when you're hungry.
I gotta say, I don't have the right personality traits to enjoy this kind of personal attention a lot of the time.
I've had experiences where the counter staff at my daily breakfast place started to recognize me and know what "usual" my order was going to be without my having to say it... and it really weirded me out more than anything else.
Sometimes I just want to be a faceless nobody, forgotten day after day by the businesses I visit and the public spaces I navigate.
> I don't have the right personality traits to enjoy this kind of personal attention a lot of the time
Have friends who work at the Four Seasons. This—low service interaction—is a common type of personalised attention patrons want.
I don’t think there is a social media cue for it. But even as someone who’s fairly extroverted, I got a note indicating I should be left alone if dining alone and reading.
Yeah I get what you mean. I think I'd be a lot more weirded out than delighted if a restaurant I was going to stalked my social media (such as it exists at all), attempted to deduce things I would like from it, and presented me those things at a meal.
Yeah I’m heavily introverted and feel the same way. It establishes a kind of social pressure that if I fail to hold up my side of the relationship I just get anxious
If you go so often that people remember you, I mean, what do you expect, that they somehow block the memory of you from their mind?
Good opportunity to learn about SingleThread, which is a 90s-style throwback to when it was impossible to learn anything about Japan so people just made things up. Like, they call their customers "chairman of the board" because they just heard a random word somewhere?
Japanese customer service ("omotenashi") is mostly about not listening to your customers. You get exactly what they want to give you and that's it. If you have a dietary restriction they may just kick you out because they won't/can't change the menu.
Japanese customer service (“omotenas”) emphasizes anticipating needs and delivering respectful, consistent service, not improvisation. It can feel rigid (no menu changes), but it’s not about ignoring or dominating it customers. If a place can accommodate a food sensitivity, they usually will. If they truly can’t, they’ll tell you clearly rather than risk doing it wrong. It’s a cultural focus on doing things properly and fairly, not a lack of care or some sort of holier-than-thou feeling.
Yes, the dietary restriction thing has become less of an issue, as there's more immigrants/tourists and more interest in vegan food recently.
But Japanese businesses can be very risk-avoidant, so they're relatively happy to not make a sale if it could possibly cause any trouble, compared to what Westerners might expect.
The penguin example seems kind of overstated, since from the sound of it the restaurant basically just donated a few dollars to WWF, but it's dressed up as how they "adopted a living animal for a guest" and no one's done that before.
That's because this article is an ad for that restaurant.
I once dined at a Michelin starred restaurant that ended the meal with a surprise for us that made me feel that they must have had listening devices in the establishment (it was based on a comment made when no server was around). In the moment, I was very impressed (and figured maybe it was a common thing in eastern bloc countries lol), but I could definitely see how others would find it creepy.
Edit: removed Bear comment as I misread the article.
These comments are such a great pointer to the way outrage is engineered.
Can you elaborate?
The title implies (well, I'd say explicitly states with the word "vetting") that restaurants are trying to filter guests, maybe to avoid troublesome ones with uncouth posts online or something. And many of the comments are replying to that interpretation, based on the unfairness suggested in the title. It's not only clickbait, it's outrage bait, designed to spark anger.
The article itself is about how restaurants have gone above and beyond for some guests where they've been able to tell from their social media that they're celebrating a special occasion or some other thing like that. To make the guests' experience better and memorable.
There's a privacy angle to this, should restaurants do that, slippery slope, etc etc... but many of the comments aren't talking about that. They're responding to the inflammatory title.
I don't think we often get such a clear picture into the why behind online outrage and how clearly manufactured it can often be. I think it's easy to believe people are angry for a good reason, to take the anger "on good faith" in some sense. In this case, with the title being so far from the article, it's clear to see what's going on. And makes one wonder about the rest of the outrage out there.
I couldn’t agree more. Half the reason I posted it was the aggressive title; I was curious to see what would happen, and it was precisely what I expected heh.
The other half of the reason was that I really did think it was an interesting article. But having to keep the title the same was a fascinating social experiment.
Thanks for running the experiment :)
You know how you sometimes read a title or a topic and you can infer the kind of commentary a particular topic will have? Even going so far as to expect words like “enshittification” to be used for both stating a point as well as for in-group signaling? Sort of like how opinions are front-loaded even if the article was read? (And very often the opinions are things we’ve heard before from many other people, this is a given).
Well, we’ve entered a period in manufactured outrage on the internet where an audience is primed ahead of time with talking points and perspectives that are deemed allowed, and then these reflexes are triggered over and over by the same kind of articles. And it’s the frenzy that counts.
It used to be confined to FB and other places but the average commenter has changed and so the average commentary has changed.
Articles are increasingly becoming rage bait, moreso than clickbait. I do not know what the appeal is yet but I imagine it’s some mixture of impulsivity that online commenting has enabled, combined with commenters thinking their take is valid/important/whatever. Maybe narcissistic but I can’t say for sure. At any rate, it’s another good way to destroy a community - especially one with self reinforcing mechanism like voting that basically ensures you’re on rails (with apologies to dhh)
Privacy concerns aside, I would be mortified if a restaurant did something special for me. I don't want extra attention. I don't want to have to pretend to be excited about a beverage I don't really care for or a gift I will just throw away.
Now if you will excuse, I see some clouds at which I need to shake my cane.
Didn't worry, they'll find this comment and stick you at an okay booth, provide okay service, and pretend not to recognize you next time you come in. It'll be perfect.
Many moons ago I was celebrating an anniversary with my parents and sister at a smallish, but very good, restaurant downtown.
As we were chatting while waiting for the dessert, the whole restaurant started singing "Happy Birthday", as the waiter (and owner) came with the dessert, sparkler and all.
I sooo wanted to just disappear.
Turned out my mom had told the waiter/owner about the occasion, and he had unbeknownst to my mom gotten all the other guests in on it.
Nice thought, just totally not my thing.
What if their special thing for you was to treat you like a truly genetic customer?
I.e., like what Leslie Knope did for Run Swanson on his birthday.
> I.e., like what Leslie Knope did for Run Swanson on his birthday.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apg09bolUIc
I guess then you wouldn't go to such a restaurant.
I dare way there is a way to completely opt out of it as well.
Do you also give a fake name to the barista at Starbucks so they don't track you? Other restaurants can't even be bothered to do that much personalization, and just give you a number (and treat you like one).
Common Cog business newsletter did some articles [1] about how this was implemented in Eleven Madison Park, starting in 2001 when Will Guidara [2] took over.
[1] https://commoncog.com/hospitality-solution-business/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Guidara
It is expected that filtering based on digital content will become a thing for a while. It's one of those obvious, but misguided, uses of recent technologies.
I don't know about restaurants, but in regards to other kinds of silos, it is likely that those filters will go down once quality data availability becomes a problem.
In the restaurant analogy, you can say that if the salloon is empty, they'll let people in because they can't survive without them.
They aren't not letting them in...
I don't know what to say. Please, read again, with a more abstract mindset this time.
Or better yet, write a comment that's less abstract and more to your point.
There is no filtering of people, its just looking at what people's tastes might be.
I've chosen an abstraction level that I find appropriate for several different contexts that the article might apply to, including the most obvious one (just plain restaurants). I don't have much to work with here.
Like many here, before I read the article I assumed this was intended to be some sort of filtering mechanism... which is a bit dystopian, but IMO the truth is much MUCH more bizarre.
We're talking about a fancy restaurant that researches you and your social media to better cater to you and make you feel "special". I think I'd prefer that this just be an extension of the velvet rope, bouncers have been around for ages, but this feels genuinely creepy.
> “The information is used as a precursor to gain more of an understanding of who our guests are,” general manager Akeel Shah explained to SFGATE. “We may not even use the information, but it gives us a better way to tailor the experience and make it memorable.”
Eewwww, no. Just no. It really feels like someone watched 'The Menu', missed the entire point of the movie, and just thought "Hey wouldn't it be neat if WE knew everything about our customers before they arrived?"
I haven't seen The Menu, but try watching The Bear instead. They demonstrate this level-of-service & mentality and it's much more sincere than you think.
Specifically, the episode "Forks," in season 2. IMO, this episode can be enjoyed by someone otherwise unfamiliar with the show.
Oh, but what a letdown to have someone watch that as their introduction. One of the very best moments in the entire series but which can only be appreciated by watching the entire series.
The Menu is... overly sincere, I won't spoil it, but it's the "Restaurant as cult environment" movie. In fact the question of lacking sincerity is framed as "the audience casually disregards the immense effort and dedication requires to achieve what you demand."
...Now that's probably using restaurants as a metaphor for the film industry, but either way the point holds. I'm not put off by insincerity, it's forced, false intimacy as a product or a service goal that bothers me. Good food, good (not fawning) service is more than enough for me, I don't need this kind of race-to-the-bottom Michelin stars seem to inspire.
> intended to be some sort of filtering mechanism
It's can be, at least anecdotally from people who work in prestigeous restaurants, i.e. places with year+ backlog. Owner/operator (frequently back of house) has strong politics and tell front of house to lose resos for certain client profiles.
The movie "LA Story" predicted this in the L'Idiot scene.
https://youtu.be/k3FvhR0n8x8?si=YjNzYF60aCeRvZE3&t=68
The last few times I reserved a table at a restaurant, I only gave my first name. They never asked for my full name, would be hard for them to find me on social media. However, I'm an immigrant with a locally uncommon first name, YMMV.
It must be emphasised that they're doing this with public information and presumably whatever else you've implicitly consented to giving them, so I don't see a problem with that. Nonetheless this isn't the experience I'd want from a restaurant, and fortunately there are plenty of others to choose from.
Honestly, this just seems like really creative and earnest hospitality. To summarize the somewhat fluffy piece -
> Kirk also has a gigantic database of each guest — about 115,000 people — and knows how many times they’ve dined at Lazy Bear since it first opened as a supper club in 2009. She then dives into social media and finds extra information that is publicly available to get a sense of who the guests are before they come in. Finally, she puts all the data she’s gathered into a color-coded Google document that every member of the team, front and back of house, studies.
“We get hundreds of emails a day, and the intimate details that some people are willing to share, sometimes we’re like ‘Holy crap. I can’t believe you told us that,’” Booth said. “But then there’s the fun, the literal joy, our team feels when they get to make these special touches with those details.”
--
That sounds great to me! I think some commenters are imagining a kind of Black Mirror meets Berghain meets social credit scenario, but it seems like really none of those things. Cynically, one could perhaps paint it as another clever way for Bay Area folks to convert capital into emotionally emulated human experiences, though even amongst that list I'd consider it one of the more wholesome.
I completely agree with you.
Haha this is fantastic. I suppose we must have been uninteresting guests to these places because we didn't get this degree of personalization but the food was great. A lot of these 3 Mich experiences are experiences and not just a dining alone thing so I totally get it. Fun stuff!
Social Credit Score, but privatized
Of which, the name comes from the US concept of “credit score” which was always privatized.
How is it a credit score? The restaurant isn't stopping anyone from coming in, but trying to personalise the experience to them.
Americans only care that the organization that can kill and arrest isn’t controlling all facets of life
But are tolerant that corporations do the exact same things in their society
Terrible. I go to fine dining in order to partake in the chef’s vision.
I would never eat at a restaurant that would let people like me in.
(Thanks, Groucho)
Life imitating art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05hTBAOnDQE
Replacing real intimacy to a paid service, neat.
(imagine I’m the dog sitting in the burning house saying this, it’s sarcasm)
This is disconcerting, and I don’t like it, though I suppose I’m not really the target audience.
Seems like the potential start of a dystopian nightmare to me.
Wouldn't be better for all concerned if a 2 star restaurant worked at providing better food and service instead of privacy invasion and exploitation of the vain?
For people who go to these restaurants, this is better service. You wouldn't find this happening at Red Robin. This is what they are paying for.
If it's not for you, that's fine.
I think you totally could replicate these experiences without the restaurant involved. Fun surprises are nice, but the absurdity of having the restaurant provide these kinds of experiences seems tacky.
I don't think I'm alone in wanting the restaurant's personality to be just as much a part of the experience as my own personality. Otherwise, what makes this place more special than any other wanting to pull the same gimmicks?
Sure. A hotel could leave you a special gift if they knew it was your anniversary.
And people would be thrilled by the customer experience their service created.
> I think you totally could replicate these experiences without the restaurant involved
How? Like another sort of establishment that's not a restaurant?
A baby penguin is not service --- it has no impact on their 2 star rating.
Unless they are on the menu, penguins have no part in the restaurant's mission. It is simple pandering to those who psychologically crave attention. It is put forth as a substitute for the lack of better product and service.
If it's a person who wants to personally make my experience better, sure, yay.
If it's a manager who wants to use AI to maximize my engagement, fuck that.
Despite much hype, past a certain point even the highest end food really is... just food.
The service is what people really pay for, and there I agree that there should be much more interesting ideas to elevate the experience than bringing in a baby penguin. I don't see anything in the article as particularly creative.
> past a certain point even the highest end food really is... just food
That point is still well up there. The difference between hours-picked tomatoes and Aramark sludge is worth paying for.
There are exactly 2 restaurants I recommend to people, and invite family/friends to when they’re visiting.
Absolutely none of these restaurants know who I am, do anything special for me, or even know my favorite dishes.
The only thing they have in common is they consistently make delicious tasting food. And they probably focus a lot on doing that. Its that simple.
Would you also recommend these 2 restaurants if they ignored you for 30 minutes before taking your order, then brought your drinks late after you've already finished your meal? There's a lot more to a good restaurant experience than consistently making delicious tasting food. It's definitely not that simple.
I would not but those are table stakes for any restaurant, that 99% of all places I go already do.
I assume you're referring to Jacques Imo's in New Orleans, then :)
They been doing that for decades
That whole story sounds like hell to me. Another invasion to the little privacy we are left with.
Good luck with that.
Pretty much the only social media I participate in, is ... here. I guess the Bay Area might take HN seriously, but I live in NY.
That's ok, you'll get the same treatment everyone else got before they started this trend. "Normies" with their lives on the standard socials will get extra attention or special treatment at no detriment to you.
The example in the article is about getting to know your patrons so no social presence would be fine, but for what you're talking about with actual filtering no social presence would be an immediate rejection so I wouldn't be so smug.
Not smug. I just don’t do social media. I know many folks, with lots of money, that are similar to me.
If SMBs want to reject us, because we aren’t posting every meal on TikTok, then they only have themselves to blame.
What does being rich have anything to do with this?
You seem to think SMB rejecting you is only a problem for them, have you considered that them rejecting you also means that you don't get service from them?
Hey listen.
Sorry if what I wrote, offended. Didn’t mean to.
So we’re done.
Maybe I’ll start taking pictures of the owners kids playing in the yard so I can establish a better relationship with the business and get better service.
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Just like China's social credit system.
There's a fundamental difference - restaurants checking if you like wine on Instagram to enhance service is optional and consequence-free, while China's system is mandatory with significant legal and financial penalties.
Until they start denying people service because they expressed support for the wrong political party or took the wrong side on a divisive social issue.
Or poisoning the food of certain people based off their social media. We can speculate all day on things that aren't happening.
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Surely once this becomes the norm and more business do it, it will only ever be used for good.. right.. ?
That's like wishful thinking that Youtube Premium is not going to have ads when it was being first implemented. It has ads now.
Except nothing like it? This article isn’t about filtering guests out, but about creating additional tailored experiences to those who do attend.
Road to hell is paved with good intentions.
And the road to heaven is paved by cynics? :)
Their social credit system doesn't actually exist in the way most people think it does, it was a top down mandate that each province was expected to implement in their own way, often without coordination.
https://youtu.be/Kqov6F00KMc
Well sure, but for private enterprise.