Jane and Michael Stern (1991, pp. 133-37) date the birth of an haute cuisine orientation to the opening in 1941 of Le Pavilion in New York, in part as a function of those intellectuals who wanted to appear cosmopolitan by disdaining traditional American food, in part as a function of international migration, and in part as a function of expansions of markets for prestige goods. By the 1950s, this New York establishment began to spawn imitations across the nation, and within twenty years of its opening, it was regarded as old-fashioned (see Levenstein 1988, pp. 206-7). The haute cuisine trend continued into the culinary boom of the 1970s (Levenstein 1993, PP. 214 - 15)> as exemplified by the opening in 1971 in Berkeley of Alice Waters's Americaninspired Chez Panisse. The food critic Craig Claiborne (1982, p. 146) notes that along with a change in attitudes came increased prosperity: “Hundreds and thousands of people who a dozen or twenty years ago had to think twice before going to some small French bistro for their coq au vin or beef bourguignonne, now find it financially feasible to visit restaurants that are relatively luxury-style to sup on the nouvelle and traditional cuisine.” With the growth of environmentalist and globalist ideologies, nouvelle restaurants have become ideologically compatible with the aging of sixties' radicals and their incorporation into the cultural establishment (e.g., Waters 1990). Indeed, Chez Panisse opened as an outgrowth of the homemade meals that Alice Waters had served Berkeley radicals (Belasco 1989, p. 94). The Berkeley restaurant scene pays heed to the maxim that you are what you eat, your cuisine is your politics, and food is an “‘edible dynamic' binding present and past, individual and society, private household and world economy, palate and power” (Belasco 1989, p. 5). The restaurant culture of Berkeley represented the epitome of a “gourmet ghetto.”
Yet, while the importance of ideological and cultural considerations in the development of new styles of restaurants may be emphasized, economic forces must not be discounted. As noted, an international market of foodstuffs developed with changes in transportation, agriculture, marketing, and refrigeration. Further, the development of a market for gourmet food as a form of consumption is part of the gentrification that has altered the urban landscape of many cities (Zukin 1991, p. 202); gourmets reside in cultural zones. This gentrification affects not only the customer base of these establishments but also its labor base, as many servers are recruited from the artistic “critical infrastructure” found in cities (Zukin 1991, p. 206). The fixed costs of restaurants are also affected when previously impoverished areas of the city are rediscovered by entrepreneurs, such as restaurateurs, who attempt to provide novel experiences for their customers who strive for the latest and most status-enhancing culinary experience. The successive popularity of various cuisines over the past two decades (e.g., Cajun, Thai, Ethiopian, Tex-Mex) has led some to suggest that the restaurant scene is as subject to trends as the art world. The culinary avant-garde grazes on.
Yet, any perspective that emphasizes the pinnacle of the restaurant industry at the expense of the vast majority of restaurants that cater to middle- and working-class eaters is deceptive. Many restaurants are not part of national chains but are small, local establishments, serving food only modestly different from that served in customers' homes. Other market niches provide Americanized “ethnic” cuisine—notably Chinese, Italian, and Mexican. Some ethnic restaurants have two menus, one for fellow members of a particular ethnic group and one for those outside it (Epstein 1993, p. 54). Among restaurants the growth of franchises is of the greatest economic significance: from White Towers in the 1920s (Hirshorn and Izenour 1979), linked to urban transport systems, to suburban fast-food establishments in the 1950s, dependent on the growth of highways, to the recent franchising of family-style and thematic restaurants found both in urban enclaves and suburban malls (Finkelstein 1989).
ECONOMICS AND RESTAURANT WORK
To understand the kitchen as a social world, we must consider it as an institutional environment. This institution consists of the industrial section of the American economy involved in the preparation and serving of food to customers: the “restaurant industry” (Hughes 1971, p. 298),7 part of the “hospitality industry” (Olesen 1992). Restaurants are integral symbols of a free-market economic system. It was not by chance that many of the early battles over integration occurred at southern lunch counters, as eating establishments were a readily available public arena of American capitalism. Indeed, restaurants are so linked to free-market capitalism that socialist nations quickly become known for the poor quality of the food they present to diners. When a socialist country begins to move from a planned economy, the restaurant business is one of the first arenas in which the development of an entrepreneurial market economy is noticed. In the early stages of Soviet perestroika, the quality of the small, private restaurants that appeared in Moscow impressed Western journalists. Within the American context, state action can be profound. The imposition of Prohibition in the United States was said to have destroyed many fine dining establishments, constituting what the journalist Julian Street described in 1931 as a “gastronomic holocaust” (Levenstein 1988, p. 183). In fact, Prohibition did not so much destroy public eating as change it, aborting the spread of French cuisine in this country, served in luxurious restaurants and aimed at well-to-do males, and replacing those establishments with more modest “American” ones, catering to women and families.
Competition among restaurants represents, in some respects, an ideal type of a true free-market system in that capital barriers to entrance into the market are relatively modest, large numbers of entrepreneurs compete, and consumers make choices with relatively little pressure. In the pure free-market system (e.g., in which cost alone determines consumption choices), products are fully fungible: all food is interchangeable. Obviously this does not apply to the restaurant industry, as establishments strive to insure product differentiation separate from price and convenience. Restaurants strive to differentiate themselves in cultural meaning as well as cost. The possibility of such differentiation creates a highly competitive market with numerous niches.
The dominant industry trade group for this segment of the economy is the National Restaurant Association, which, in conjunction with state trade associations, represents a quarter of a million restaurants. Many others operate that are too small or choose not to be represented by this giant association. For instance, in the city of Chicago there are some 8,000 eating establishments. Even if we ignore lunch counters and fast-food establishments, most large metropolitan areas sport several hundred restaurants. According to 1987 census data, 330,000 eating places employed nearly six million workers with a payroll of $36 billion and sales of nearly $150 billion (Statistical Abstracts 1990, p. 769). This industrial segment represents the largest employer of young people between 16 and 19 years of age. The National Restaurant Association estimates that sales of food equaled nearly 5 percent of the United States Gross National Product in 1982. In 1977, restaurants accounted for 8.8 percent of the money spent in all retail establishments (Zelinsky 1985, p. 53). On a typical day more than 77 million customer transactions occur in the food industry, and 78 percent of all families report eating in commercial food-service establishments on a regular basis. This gigantic industry comprises numerous small firms, each tightly interconnected with a network of large corporations (food producers and suppliers).
From one perspective, all these eating establishments compete with each other, but from another this is deceptive. Within a market a restaurant draws customers from different regions, choosing its market niche or segment. A restaurant differs from others in the distances that its customers will travel to eat there. A local restaurant (e.g., a family restaurant that is part of a chain, a locally owned café, or a diner) has a customer base that resides or shops near the restaurant—a small catchment area. When my family and I desire a simple Mexican meal or to eat in a cafeteria, we choose a restaurant within a mile or two of our home or near to where we happen to be at the time. We are unlikely to drive across town, because we perceive that these restaurants are equivalent—we are unwilling to incur significant costs (in money, fuel, or time) for no measurable difference in quality. In contrast, when we choose a restaurant for dim sum or for haute cuisine, we may travel great distances. These restaurants are not fungible with others, because of the