Dressing Up for Eating Out - WSJ article

[cookie]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013604576246911629008064.html

 

[dhermann1]

Excellent, excellent, excellent. BTW, when are we going to have a 21 Club Lounge meet up???

 

[Richard Warren]

Fashions fade; style is eternal. But what happens when style becomes fashionable?

 

[justanuthercap]

Quite a few years ago, my wife and I went to Emeril's for an anniversary dinner in dress and a suit respectively. Our clothes were nothing particularly fancy, but still nice. Now, Emeril's is fairly upscale for this area, so I guess we expected to be surrounded by similarly dressed folks. The table directly next to us is filled with flip flop/shorts/tank top wearers who also wore their ballcaps throughout the meal. I'm not a prude by any stretch, but I must admit we were disappointed and it actually made brought the dining experience down a bit. It's not often when we can blow almost $200 for a dinner (okay, almost never) but I guess we were expecting too much. Of course, now it doesn't surprise us a bit.

(By the way, we were in our late thirties at the time and the table next to us were AT LEAST our age.)

 

[JimWagner]

While I guess it's possible that the 20-40 year old crowd will start dressing better I'd not hold out much hope for that based on a NYT article, at least not outside of some small pockets in NYC. I truly don't believe any but a very small minority of that age group can be bothered to wear more than what they currently wear.

 

[JimWagner]

My son treated his Mom and I to dinner at Maggianno's on Mother's Day. The only ties in the place were on the wait staff. Shorts and flip flops were everywhere. And it wasn't even warm enough that day for shorts.

 

[rue]

From the article:

Dress-code mandates or not, Mr. Wolfe continued, the benefits to formal dressing outweigh the negatives. "You'll look terrific, and miles above those slobs. And you'll get more respect. Formal dress really has social impact. You'll be treated with greater deference than the 45-year-old guy dressed like a rock drummer."

Well said.

 

[Feraud]

Just an fyi, the article is from the Wall Street Journal.

 

[Richard Warren]

When I go to a nice restaurant, the men generally wear jackets, although ties might not be as common as they were decades ago.

Its a mistake to confuse certain large cities (especially ones whose denizens are not particularly famous for their good manners) with the entire world.

Perhaps it is this confusion that caused the original poster to believe the article was from the NYTimes, for which such confusion seems to be an effective branding element.

 

[JimWagner]

Just an fyi, the article is from the Wall Street Journal.

 

[The Good]

That was an extremely interesting article; a social commentary on the dress that seems to prevail during our times. Typically, my style is almost completely "business" or "smart" casual, anyway. I enjoy dressing this way, so I don't apparently have the problem most men may have with regard to dressing nicer. One thing I do lack is a suit, but I'll get that taken care of eventually. I do wear ties sometimes, but not ordinarily. Most of the time, I'm a jeans or khakis, and dress shirt sort of guy, often wearing either a leather jacket or sport coat, but I try to make sure my clothing fits well; not too tight or baggy. I believe ill-fitting clothing is also a pretty large problem.

 

[Pompidou]

I noticed in the topmost photo, the suit wearer has company, suggested by a table setting across from him, while the flannel wearer eats alone. It can't be an accident. Even their respective facial expressions and postures speak volumes. The suit wearer has the attention of someone off camera, while nobody pays attention to the flannel wearer.

 

[adouglasmhor]

I once had the entertaining experience of seeing an aging African gentleman backhand a "ned"* in his early twenties across the face in a chain restaurant, telling him "Take your hat off, people are eating". I can only presume he came from somewhere that manners are highly prized. It was funny to me (maybe I am a bad person) and no one staff or customer said a word and the ned removed his baseball hat.

*ned

 

[Edward]

I once had the entertaining experience of seeing an aging African gentleman backhand a "ned"* in his early twenties across the face in a chain restaurant, telling him "Take your hat off, people are eating". I can only presume he came from somewhere that manners are highly prized. It was funny to me (maybe I am a bad person) and no one staff or customer said a word and the ned removed his baseball hat.

*ned

Oh, that's priceless!! Would love to have been there. Where was that, somewhere in Glasgow?

 

[Frenchy56]

I once had the entertaining experience of seeing an aging African gentleman backhand a "ned"* in his early twenties across the face in a chain restaurant, telling him "Take your hat off, people are eating". I can only presume he came from somewhere that manners are highly prized. It was funny to me (maybe I am a bad person) and no one staff or customer said a word and the ned removed his baseball hat.

*ned

This actually made my day...

 

[adouglasmhor]

Oh, that's priceless!! Would love to have been there. Where was that, somewhere in Glasgow?

It was in Stirling. It was so unexpected. The older gent sat down and continued his meal like nothing had happened.

 

[Richard Warren]

Or perhaps he came from somewhere physical violence is highly esteemed.

 

[adouglasmhor]

Or perhaps he came from somewhere physical violence is highly esteemed.

No he came to somewhere physical violence is unfortunately highly esteemed by some.
I think he just came from an older style culture.

 

[Pompidou]

There's some irony in a man that values manners clocking a stranger in the face for wearing a hat indoors. Something tells me he doesn't value manners all that much.

 

[LittleMissToniJo]

I came away from this article being completely disappointed in Burt Reynolds.