My so-called restaurant: A novel in stories

Abstract

My So-Called Restaurant: A Novel in Stories follows the rise and fall of Early Birds, an institution of New York City dining, a restaurant credited with both inspiring, and then outlasting, the explosion of trendy farm-to-table restaurants that followed the successful model of Early Birds’ simple, fresh, seasonally-sourced menu. Told from the perspective of multiple characters, the chapter-stories in this novel-in-stories not only explore the life of the restaurant, but also the lives of the people who work there—servers, chefs, managers, bartenders—and their experience living in the city, working in the industry, and struggling to reconcile the demands of the restaurant with their own personal (often artistic) ambitions.