Dining Out Post-Quarantine

As much as we enjoyed to-go restaurant food during quarantine, it's just not the same with certain types of meals that don't hold up in the delivery/to-go process. Once restaurants were able to open back up here in Texas, we were all happy to try the post-quarantine dining experience. We weren't sure what to expect, but dining out was definitely different from before. We first tried a spot outdoors and were surprised to see other patrons wearing masks outside before their food arrived. Another thing we noticed was that the menus were now printed on paper (to throw away after each use), and there were no shared condiments or napkin holders on the tables. When I asked for salt, they brought me a tiny cup with the equivalent of a few shakes of the dispenser. On another occasion, we took the kids to Texas Roadhouse for a long overdue birthday steak. We had to pull up their menus on our smartphones, and again we had to ask for condiments in single-serve portions. It seemed like no matter what time of day we visited a restaurant, we were able to walk right in to be seated, when previously there would have been an hours-long wait during normal mealtimes. The tables were spaced far apart but yet we were still in in the minority of folks that seemed comfortable rejoining the dining society in public. How long would this last, we wondered?