“You just always want to try the new thing,” said Audrey Aguirre-Woo, who joined the line from Daly City.
Cynical semi-rant: the diners who fit this profile always want to try the new thing - provided it has enough marketing and PR oomph behind it for it to catch their interest and it helps a whole lot if the new thing is already famous and popular somewhere else.
There is still, right now, a stand smack in the middle of the Stonestown food court serving Central Asian and Russian dishes made by a guy from Kyrgyzstan. That is inarguably novel to most diners in SF - in other words, it is definitely a “new thing”! But it has never been jammed with customers, nor did it even make it into Bitker’s piece, because its owners are a family business rather than a multinational corporation, because it’s a humble stand instead of a full-on retail space with Instagram-friendly design and lighting, and because it serves a very un-trendy cuisine instead of trying to capitalize on whatever concept was a hit in Japan/Korea/HK/Taiwan/LA/NYC a few years ago.*
So yeah. I realize that most diners aren’t the types to really go exploring like the HO/FTC/Chowhound crowd. But it would at least be nice if writers like Bitker asked more critical questions like “what is the impact of these trendchasers on the overall Bay Area food scene, and are the businesses that serve them really making the area richer from a culinary perspective?”
*yes, I realize this specific business isn’t necessarily making food that’s setting the world on fire quality-wise. My point is that even if it were, it’s unlikely that it would make much difference to its success or failure as a business, because the customers described in this piece don’t actually care as much about eating outstanding food as they do chasing the latest trend. In the last few years SF has been blessed with the openings of several excellent Arab and Turkish restaurants, at all price ranges from Tahini to Tawla. La Torta Gorda is making food from Puebla that I have never seen outside of Mexico. Casa de la Condesa makes killer Mexico City-style dishes. All of these places fly under the radar and enjoy modest success at best (at worst, in Tawla’s case, they’ve gone under) because they aren’t “destinations” like whatever’s going into the mall.
