Last night a client visiting D.C. took me to dinner at a local upscale restaurant. It was a nostalgic and bittersweet evening in addition to being, you know, yummy. (Stone crabs!) My late wife Grace loved going out to eat at a great restaurant, dressing up, feeling like this was an event and not just a meal. Since she died, my business crashed and my finances went to hell, I haven’t had a single meal at such an establishment. Oh, I’ve had some meals at decent places with excellent food, but the staffs are casual and a lot of diners—even me— are in jeans. That’s fine; it doesn’t interfere with the social experience or my enjoyment of the meal. And yet…
The Ruth’s Chris restaurant chain recently posted about the steakhouse’s dress code, reminding patrons that the desired atmosphere is “business casual” and “proper attire” is mandatory. Guests are to remove hats when entering, and if you have a baseball cap on, you will be stuck at the bar or the lounge.The main dining room will be off-limits. Dining rooms will not allow “gym wear, pool attire, tank tops, clothing with offensive graphics or language, revealing clothing, or exposed undergarments.”
Well, good. Civility, etiquette and respect for others are always victims of entropy, as air travel and theater-going have proven. Ruth’s Chris wants to hold the line, and that takes courage and a sense of responsibility. Being with other diners who care how they present to everyone around them is part of the positive experience of dining out at an excellent restaurant.
The slobs, as well the progressives, socialists, working class heroes and aspiring termites in the foundation of society, of course, do not agree. One critic on social media wrote, “Ruth’s Chris isn’t fine dining, it’s like one step up from Outback. This is going to make a lot of people not go.” I agree the restaurant is not The Prime Rib, but it’s about five steps up from Outback or Applebee’s. What’s the matter with classing up the joint a bit? The whole idea of maintaining levels of personal deportment is that it makes everyone feel better and behave better.
Thne some marketing whiz at Chili’s (which I would place a notch below Applebees’, but it’s close) saw an opportunity to virtue-signal man-on-the-street virtues. “The only dress code at Chili’s is that you have to be dressed,” it tweeted, setting off a tweet war.
Victory Girls, the right-ish blog, notes that “a general disdain about dressing for the occasion is a bit more indicative of an illness our culture cannot afford to ignore” and quoted writer Robert Heinlein, who once observed,
“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”
Bingo.
Ethics Alarms 
We interrupt your regularly schedule discussions for an important announcement.
It is Opening Day!
Appropriate post late, but coming!
Actually, now that I read this post, the video is even more appropriate.
Take a look at the pictures of what folks were wearing to attend baseball games — I see lots of coats and ties. Well, not so much the ball players, but even the press.
And Jack, it’s not late — the Yankees and Giants kick off the season tonight, everyone else tomorrow.
What is the apparent AI generated graphic today? The martini glass and hands (hands!) of the gent on the lower right, and similar features on others, are tell-tale signs. Scary.
I regularly attend fancier spots. It is easy to spot those who are regular fine diners and those who aren’t. Clothes can be an indicator, but anymore it is more about standard table manners. Like many things of the past, these are routinely ignored.
“The only dress code at Chili’s is that you have to be dressed,”
Seems like a low bar. Even McDonalds requires shoes and a shirt. Not sure if Chili’s requires that.
-Jut
Would it be rude to knock off mens baseball & or cowboy hats while passing? Or to proivde a shawl for women?
Most of the cruise requirements I’ve seen recently were just short lists of what wasn’t acceptable, and similar to Ruth’s… shorts, swimsuits, collarless shirts, ratty jeans. On one we were on in early Feb., we only ever saw one old guy who wore a tux on the “chic” dinner nights, and he looked like he probably didn’t have many more cruises in him.
I gave away my tuxes to a son-in-law a few years back. I’ve gone from suit and tie to like you call “business casual”…slacks & button-up shirt. Don’t even bring a tie anymore. We usually have some sort of land excursion before and/or after, so don’t really want to give up any more baggage space than we have to to little used items.
If you want to see some really diverse levels of dress in one place these days, go to an opera.
During my morning walk, my audio lesson for the day often is interrupted by a thought about an older post on Ethics Alarms that niggles at me, despite my resistance to reviewing old posts – gotta move on, you see. Happened again this morning. So, what’s a guy to do?
Well! Both Ruth’s Chris and Chili’s chose exactly the right policy. There is a class of people that I did not really come into contact with or understand until my later years, i.e., some 20 or 30 years ago. Over those years, I have come to understand them at least a little better. For lack of a better term, I will refer to them here as The Elites.
I grew up in what sometimes euphemistically is called a ‘working class neighborhood’. Accurate enough. No one in the area had a college degree. All worked in manual labor. So far as I knew, there were only minimal aspirations to do better. My contact during those formative years with The Elites was nil. Yet, years later, I’ve come to understand how, especially from the viewpoint of The Elites, that mixing is not only undesirable, but a gross faux pas. Heck, when I grew up, I had no idea what a ‘faux pas ‘was. I would have pronounced it as fuck pass.
But, I have come to understand that there are the elites and there are the others. A somewhat friend, until she revealed her true colors, repeatedly encouraged my wife and me to go with her to one of her houses in one of the more elite areas of the state I happen to live in to see, what?. Obviously to see the upper (make that, way upper class neighborhood) where she owned one of her several houses and the extravagant house she owned there and maybe used occasionally.
What’s this got to do with Ruth Chris’s and Chili’s? My view is that both companies recognize that, despite “All men are created equal”, we are not. There are those born into elitism, legacy college admission, plenty of money, gap years, European trips, etc., and there are those of us who are not, who are raised with no expectation of that stuff at all.
So, what‘s this got to do with restaurants? As I learned, those who are The Elite do not want to mix with those who are not, and they, without reflection, look down upon. Often overlooked, is the converse – those of us raised differently do not care to mix with The Elites. We understand what snobbery is, and we want no part of it.
Even a brief perusal of American history would show that the manner of dress and the service, menu, accommodations, etc., of places such as Ruth Chris’s, confirmed by their latest statement on dress code, were designed to separate The Elite from the rest of us. Just another legacy of slavery that is re-defined as us vs. them.
So, to those who have to show off by clothing, menu prices, table service, etc., just how wonderful they are, I say, have at it. But, do not denigrate those of who weren’t born equal and have no aspiration to associate with you.
HJ,
I was pondering something very similar. I’ve seen from blue collar and white collar sides of my family and my in-laws very real disdain for the way each side dresses. My wife’s stepfather’s idea of formal attire is a button-down shirt to go with his blue jeans and cowboy boots. My dad, a CPA, wore suits every day to the office. There is definitely a divide in that sense. And I have also felt my own biases about fancy places that require formal wear. Too rich for me to even bother with.
However, I wonder how much of this, too, is a generational shift. It seemed to me that my peers on a whole have dressed less formally than our parents, and the generation after us seems to dress, on a whole, even less formally than we do. (At least, I think I’m seeing Gen Z and Gen Alpha thinking that clothes that come designed to look like they’re torn apart is perfectly acceptable for formal wear. Why wouldn’t you great the head of state with a midriff-baring shirt and pants with holes in the knees?)
On the other hand, how much of these generational shifts is also due to attitude about who it is that wears the very formal garb? My impression was, and maybe it needs correction, that our younger executives and innovators and others like to dress much more informally, in part because they don’t want to be seen as “the man” keeping others down.
It makes me wonder how much cultural commentary is actually embedded in our shifting appreciation of various dress codes.
As usual, Ryan, a thoughtful and thought provoking comment. I probably should not have said “a legacy of slavery”; upon further reflection, I’m sure the division by dress is more the haves and the have not. I certainly would dress up should I ever have the opportunity to meet with a head of state. But, I also would expect that if my manner of dress wasn’t quite up to expectations, that would be ignored, and I still would be treated with respect.
My husband often wonders if “pajama day” has been one a thing jot just for elementary school kids but also for adults in the 20-40 age group as he sees them clump and shuffle into his business establishment, a local hardware store with an espresso bar also located within. Invariably members of the PJ set like to order a milkshake or some other menu selection that is both more costly and highly-sugared than other options. They also may be in need of a hairbrush and reek of pot smoke. My husband usually tries to greet them with kindness (CA lawyers take heed) and may even compliment their bedroom distinguished slippers. Ruth’s Chris has the right and few budget restraints to be more choosy about their patronage.