Customers arriving alone at a Penarth restaurant will soon be able to opt to sit with a group of complete strangers at an eight-person “communal table”.
Already popular in the US, communal dining aims to make eating out more attractive to solo diners – although it remains to be seen whether reserved Brits will take to it as readily as their New York counterparts.
“It’s only by trying that we’ll find out”, admits Pier64’s Francis Dupuy. “But what’s the difference between that and when young people at school get together at the table? Maybe [for people dining alone] there’s a way to make things more welcoming, and not scary”.
Dupuy stresses that the object isn’t matchmaking, but, if something does happen then, “Well then we can’t help that…”.