This episode explores the real emotional machinery behind restaurants and why they remain one of the last places where genuine human conversation still happens. Author and theorist Brian Duff pulls from years of restaurant work, sixteen years of criticism, and a lifetime of studying how people talk, listen, and connect. What starts as a book discussion turns into a deep dive into modern communication, the collapse of in person dialogue, and why the dinner table still carries a kind of ancient power. Pull up a chair, grab your favorite snack, and listen to two people talking about human interaction.
We explore how restaurants both soothe and provoke us, why people react so strongly when food is wrong, what happens when technology creeps too far into hospitality, and how a simple meal can expose the inner child in all of us. Brian also shares the wild story of how early QAnon believers misread political emails and accidentally turned restaurant chatter into conspiracy fuel.
It is a conversation about culture, care, fear, pleasure, community, and everything we hope for when we sit down to eat.
Expect to Learn:
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Service starts now.
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I talk mostly to people in and around the service industry space. I'm looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in restaurants. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess of a life, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost.
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As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.
Cheers
