The Fork

Perhaps you’ve heard this week about a new permit from the city of Santa Fe that would allow restaurants to start serving outside so long as the area in which service occurs is contiguous to said restaurant’s original floor plan. Given how the governor announced this week restaurants won’t be able to do indoor dining (patios are reportedly still OK).

We won’t get into the nitty gritty (there’s an online piece about it here), and besides—we wanted to hear from you.

Here are the main points:

• Dining took a major hit in the last few months due to COVID-19
• People wanna go out to eat
• Businesses are quickly approaching the point of no return if something doesn't happen soon.

So where do you come in? Easy—in the survey questions below. Just copy and paste into your email, then we'll synthesize the data for the next edition of The Fork (your favorite food newsletter of all time). Please note that if you want to get into a whole conspiracy theory thing, we're not really here for that...we just wanna talk about dining. So here we go!

• Have your delivery/takeout habits changed over the last few months?
• Have you been making a conscious effort to support restaurants you want to see survive the lockdown?
• Would you say you're prepared to start dining in person again if it's outdoors—as in, if restaurants provide options for diners to visit, will you go right away, or will you wait?
• By what scale do you consider a restaurant to be clean and/or responsible enough to warrant your patronizing it in-person?
• If you do not plan on visiting restaurants, will you continue to order takeout and/or delivery?

Easy, right? Now get clacking on yer keyboards, and we can kick off a discussion next week. We're excited to hear from you, as always! In case you didn't know or you see this not in your inbox, we can be reached at thefork@sfreporter.com.

Also

-As we mentioned above, the city kicked off a new permit thing that would allow restaurants more leeway into outdoor dining. Given that the weather around here is pretty much perfect the next few months, we though you'd be excited about that. You can get a look at the application here (and share with your foodservice buds in case they hadn't heard).

-It's a good thing those permits came out right about now, because Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced on Tuesday that restaurants with outdoor/patio seating options can get back to serving now (with special provisions, of course, like distance and masks on workers and such).

-PSA: This link will take you to information about the best popsicle we've ever tasted. It's available at Natural Grocers—please try to leave a few boxes for us, because they're seriously sooooo refreshing and delicious.

-In case you missed it, the Santa Fe School of Cooking is still offering virtual classes. Not bad for people who saw some movie in the '90s and totally decided that cutesy cooking together was a thing (it's really not...cooking is mostly, like, yelling at someone to get out of the way as your fish turns a leathery brown). Anyway, it's pretty cool and you can learn a lot.

-Lastly in local (and this'll sound not local at first, but it loops back around, SO JUST RELAX), it turns out that while the world's been all out there stabbing people over Popeye's chicken sandwiches, the folks at Blake's Lotaburger were developing one of their own. There's a regular one, there's a ranch one; did you also know Blake's has an AMAZING merch store online?

More Tidbits

-Beer sales are reportedly up in America by 16%, according to USA Today, and given how much beer we drink in times when we're NOT stuck at home, that's staggering. Apparently Corona is selling super-well, too, despite early pandemic info that stupid Americans were somehow linking it to the virus. Give us a break.

-NPR ran a really cool piece over the weekend about the risks involved in doing certain things—like dining out. Since we like dynamism and synergy and, like, when stuff we were talking about is talked about by other outlets, we're down to clown on this information.

-If you read our print edition this week, one of our writers covered some of the new provisions underway for restaurants opening back up in New Mexico, and one of those things had to do with buffets and salad bars (they're a no-go in NM for now). HuffPost, however, has a little something about the future of eateries that work like that, and it's worth a read if, like our mom, you're calling people to talk about the permanent closure of Souplantation (like Souper Salad for those who don't know).

-Meanwhile, over at our favorite food site Eater.com, Jaya Saxena has a fantastic piece about the reopening of restaurants (note the Paulie Walnuts portrait in the background of its cover art) and why that might not be the best idea right now.

Finally

In the print edition of SFR, find new rules for how restaurants are supposed to operate starting pretty much now.

A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence

Number of Letters Received

28*Y’all hate celeb chefs.

Most Helpful Tip of the Week

Not even anything mean.*Dang.

Actually Helpful Tip

Zilch.*But we want 'em!

Surveyingly, The Fork