The moral choices restaurants now face

As we eat out more, restaurant owners face a moral appeal more and more often. That portion of virtue increasingly lands on the operator's bill. Should a responsible restaurant have to meet higher moral standards than any other?

We overshot on financial durability

Hospitality owners are generally looking for opportunities, chances to be successful over the long run. About fifteen years ago that economic, time-bound durability slowly gained a wider frame, with ecological and social dimensions added to it. Understandable, after the money-focused seventies, eighties and nineties. We had overshot on the financial durability we were chasing.

The ecological side is reached largely by putting more plant-based dishes on the menu. Seasonal cooking and local buying do a lot of the work towards a healthier planet. It is a widely accepted starting point now, but before the sector has a proper grip on it, the next dimension is already arriving.

Every dimension brings its own inspectors

Each dimension comes with its own assessors. On quality and facilities, several grew up over time: Michelin, hotel stars, Booking and Gault and Millau. The ecological dimension brought its own, from footprint labels to certification schemes. So the environmental component has been added to the scoring, and operators are now judged on several dimensions at once.

The social dimension is hardest to measure

The third, social dimension seems to have made its entrance for good in how hospitality is judged. Assessing moral, societal or social choices independently is much harder to measure than quality or footprint.

It is probably not a role you accounted for as a restaurant or cafe owner when you started. I did not either. At Restaurant Vanderveen we made deliberate choices about which causes we supported and what we stood for. The bill was there. The only question was whether you would see it.