我們吃飯的方式

「我們應該在哪吃點東西呢？"也許再沒有別的問題更能激發消費技術創業者的積極性了。當然我半開玩笑說的。

After the age of the Yellow Pages, we』ve all used multiple services that guide us to a restaurant seat. We』ve hunted for restaurants on Google, researched options on Zagat, and offered reviews on Yelp. The trend for how we search for restaurants has shifted from directories (phone books) to guides (ratings) to people influencing our decisions. Today, there』s stiff competition amongst mobile services to drive us to the next restaurant, whether it』s a Living Social daily deal, a Foursquare check-in reward, anUrbanSpoon recommendation, or simply word-of-mouth, serendipitous suggestions that filter through conversations on various social networks or, heaven forbid, in real life.

在使用電話黃頁之後，我們都習慣了多樣化的服務指引我們去哪些餐館。我們在Google上搜索餐館，在Zagat上查詢可選擇的地方，在Yelp上寫上去過的感受等。我們查找餐館的方式已經從電話書中直接查詢變成了需要旁人建議來影響我們的決定。現在激烈的移動服務競爭引導著我們去下個餐館，是否是Living Social 網上每日的兌換交易，Foursquare網站登錄獎勵，anUrbanSpoon網上的推薦，或者是簡單的滲透進各種社交網站大家口頭的信息交流中，偶然獲得的建議，當然真實生活中不可能得到。

These services help drive us to eateries and hopefully create incentives between restaurants and customers to foster repeat business and loyalty. But the restaurant business is hyper-competitive. Many don』t make it. Turnover is the norm. And for those that are able to survive, either because of killer food or location, the majority of them offer adequate food, service, and ambiance, yet are able to turn a buck because we keep going back. Instead of competing on quality, most compete on offers and optimize to fill open seats. For the most part, it at least appears the majority of restaurants worry less about word-of-mouth goodwill and are more focused on accumulating badges and stickers to paste underneath their menus as patrons window-shop.

這些服務帶領我們到達吃飯的地方，同時也期望可以在餐館和顧客之間創造一些激勵措施以保證回頭客。但是餐館市場競爭太過激烈。許多人都做不成功。營業額一般般。對於那些可以勝出的餐館來說，一個是因為他們的吸引人的菜肴以及優勢的地點，他們大部分都提供美味的菜肴，優質的服務以及很好的氛圍，這樣可以創收，因為我們成了回頭客。代替只是在質量方面比拼，大多數也致力於提供和優化開放式座位。對於大部分餐館來說，至少看上去很多餐館並不特別擔心大家口頭所說的信譽好壞，更注重積累一些獎章和標籤貼在菜單下來向顧客宣傳展示。

Having spent a decent portion of my life working in restaurants, I know markups and margins on tickets are healthy, even excluding those businesses with liquor licenses. People are perfectly willing to fork over two to three times the cost of goods sold, even if those goods are not so tasty. The time saved, the ease of ordering, and the feeling of eating out somehow translates to a juicy premium. All the while, oftentimes the food is suspect, both in terms of quality and nutritional value. Yet we continue to go back, line up, gorge ourselves, and repeat. And as the economy continues to recover (slowly), individuals and especially families are under enormous pressure to stock up at big box retailers and focus on food quantity at the expense of quality.

在餐館工作過很久後，我了解到票面上的漲價和利潤是可行的，這還不包括允許範圍內的酒水生意。人們願意付比實際產品價格高出2到3倍的價錢，儘管那些食物並不那麼好吃。節省時間，點餐容易，外出吃飯不知何故就變成了可賺的生意。一直以來，食物都不是那麼有保障，不管是質量上還是營養價值上。然後我們還是不停地去餐館，大吃一頓，接著再去。隨著經濟的復甦（慢慢地），個人，特別是家人，壓力很大的情況下吃的都很多，不顧食物的質量而是只注重食物的數量了。"

當餐館和這些服務持續競爭賺飯錢時，許多新的消費網站的開辦大範圍地填補了某些空白，開創了我們讓我們大吃一頓新的方式。如Gobble和Grubly這些新的公司開創了本地家庭式菜肴，既可以送外賣也可以過來取。不用再加熱冷凍的披薩或者點些普通的外賣，這些服務幫助家庭式菜肴打響了名聲（同時也賺了點錢）。Kitchit"s 的目標和別人有些不同，他對於經常做飯而且將飯帶進我們家的人實行免費，為的是我們可以有朋友過來吃晚飯，將我們的公寓和住所變成餐館。

這些服務主要是家庭式用餐，其他的則是讓我們走出家去結識新的朋友。"和我們吃飯吧"就是一種鼓動朋友們或者陌生人去新餐館，在給店主一部分定金的情況下餐館提供一些座位，可以使用餐者有機會結識新人或者欣賞到喜歡的用餐設施。「家庭用餐」是一項和其他人在做菜人家共用家庭菜的服務，可以在你所在的城市也可以在旅途中。我們都有過經歷，和同一個人吃好幾次飯這種很單調，或者是在旅途中陷入旅行設置的陷阱餐館，期待能嘗到當地的特色菜。『和我們吃飯吧』與"家常菜"可以打破這種單調，還不錯。

All of this is happening because of the convergence of a number of trends. Our economy is struggling to regain its footing. We』ve become more educated about the dangers of poor nutrition, the hazards of frozen food, and dietary effects of portion sizes. Diabetes is a legitimate health threat. We have to commute more, from suburb to suburb, as job tenures become shorter. We marry later in life. Then, we divorce. Both parents work, or there』s just one parent. Kids don』t take as much of an interest in cooking their own food, let alone having any curiosity as to where it comes from. And with technology to make us more productive and/or to distract us, we oftentimes get caught in situations where we turn one of humankind』s most social habits into an anti-social event, a means to an end.

所有這一切都因為一系列新趨勢的推廣。我們的經濟正在逐步恢復穩定。我們變得更加擔心營養不良的危害，速凍食品的危害以及更關注飲食的效應。糖尿病被認為是健康的一種危害。隨著工作任期的縮短，我們不得不更加頻繁的通勤於郊區路上。我們晚婚，而後離婚。父母全職，或者單親。孩子們對於自己做飯沒有太多興趣，更別提會好奇飯從哪裡來了。隨著技術發展，我們更加忙碌，也更加無暇顧及，經常性的，我們陷入各種困境，在那我們將人類最富社交的習慣變成了反社交的事情，成為只是達到目的的一種手段。

As Robert Putnam, the author of Bowling Alone, might say, we』re also 「Eating Alone,」 at least some of the time, and we』re content with it. Despite the popularity of the Food Network, one of its most attractive personalities, Jamie Oliver, wasn』t able to take healthy eating and education mainstream—his show, Food Revolution, had six episodes in 2010 and was yanked off the air after two spots in 2011 because of low ratings, replaced replaced by Dancing with the Stars.

Bowling Alone的作者羅伯特普特南，可能會說我們也會單獨吃飯，至少有些時候，我們還挺樂意這樣的。雖然食物網站非常流行，其中最吸引人的個性，吉米奧利弗，吃的不健康也得不到主流的思想，2010年他的6集表演，食物的變革在2011年由於低收視率被拉下2個點，同時被與星同舞代替。

We are separated from what we eat. We lose that connection as to where the food came from in the first place, where it was planted, harvested, and how it ended up prepared on our plate. That』s what excites me about this particular batch of startups. They may or may not create a Google-like technology giant, but that』s not the point. They』re riding social networks and creating peer-to-peer economies, allowing us to connect with others around food and offering an interesting (and sometimes cheaper and healthier) alternative to frozen dinners and overpriced restaurants. Technology will probably never be able to answer the question 「Where should we eat?」 That』s OK. What』s important is that how we answer the question could be different in the future, and that』s a good thing. After all, we』re not just what we eat—we』re also where we eat and whom we eat with.

我們被所吃的食物分開了。我們不再關心我們吃的食物最初是哪來的，哪裡種的，哪裡豐收的，怎麼端上盤子的。這就是一系列新興開辦讓我感到興奮的。這些可能或者不可能創造出像Google一樣的技術巨頭，但是這不是關鍵。他們正駕馭著社交網路，開創著點到點經濟，讓我們和其他人通過食物來聯繫並提供了一種代替冷凍晚餐和昂貴餐館的方式。技術可能從來不能回答例如我們應該去哪吃這種問題。沒關係。重要的是我們未來對此的回答會有所不同，這是好事情。畢竟我們不會再僅回答我們吃了什麼---我們還會回答我們在哪吃的和誰一起吃的。