Alone Again, Naturally

I travel a lot on business, and I frequently end up dining on my own.  The staff at restaurants often don’t know what to do with the single diner.  They either ignore you, I assume the best and figure it’s because they don’t know what to do, or they pace the meal as if you were dining with a pleasant companion.  The pace you’d like when you’re eating with someone makes for an interminable evening when you’re by yourself.   I always take a book with me as defense for a slow paced meal by myself.

Last week I found myself wandering about the Hillcrest neighborhood in San Diego, killing time before a redeye back home.  Hillcrest is rich with restaurants, and I was attracted to LaVache.  They had a prix fixe menu posted outside that looked good, bouef bourguignon was on the list, and that seemed to hit the spot.  Of course, June and San Diego and boeuf bourguignon are hardly a reasonable combination, but I was 4000 miles from home, and beef stew is comfort food.

So LaVache it was.  I went in and ordered up a glass of Jaboulet Parallel 45, a splendid Cotes du Rhone.  Excellent.  But the point of this post is single dining, so I won’t go into the meal, which was all quite nice.  If you’re ever in San Diego, LaVache is worth a visit.

No, this post is about single dining, and my server handled it as well as I’ve seen it done.  She (I don’t know her name, didn’t want to ask and seem like a middle-aged lech) was attentive, kept the courses coming, but didn’t rush me.  At one point my glass of wine was getting close to empty and I glanced up just for a bit of recon so when in 10 minutes or so I needed a refill I’d know where to find her (yes, I know that’s a particularly alcoholic tendency, to panic when you don’t know where your next drink is coming from) and she caught my glance and came over to see if I needed anything.  Just an example of paying attention to the single diner.

LaVache uses butcher paper tableclothes and gives you crayons to draw on them with.  I left the URL to this site on the tablecloth, so I hope, fine server from LaVache, that you visit here and see that your everyday work made my world a better place.  Thank you.