Vulnerability of a Restaurant Culture

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Whitewater’s publicly-driven marketing may not have amounted to much, these last ten years, but there are few better advertisements for Whitewater than thriving restaurants and taverns. Good restaurants, doing well, are a sign of a successful community.

Some of Whitewater’s newest restaurants also reflect a sensibility that’s significantly more contemporary than older ones that lingered and shuffled along in town for the last generation. Newcomers to the city, especially successful and discerning ones, will notice today good choices that did not exist a decade ago.

One could talk forever about how Whitewater is a great place to ‘live, work, and play,” but no one picks a town because of a tired slogan used too often by too many. No one sensible will choose Whitewater because of what we say, and especially what government, public-relations men, or local notables say about the town.

A sensible man or woman will chose Whitewater based on his or her own direct impressions of how the town appears and what it offers by sight, sound, and taste. Few would buy a house without a walkthrough; equally few will buy a car without a test drive.

All the websites, flyers, commercials, testimonials, etc., are slight when compared with a good meal, in a congenial setting, recommended to one’s friends.

Whitewater talks so much – rightly – about attracting the talented. Good restaurants attract good prospects, people who would help build a hip and prosperous community.

A restaurant culture, however, is a vulnerable and fragile one. It’s hard to run these establishments, and hard to be assured of patrons who, after all, are free to choose one offering – or one city – over another. It’s not so far to other towns that patrons will not go elsewhere, or prospects avoid our city entirely. We are, after all, a people of automobiles, easily able to drive to one place or another (or drive nowhere by dining at home).

One cannot avoid noticing how reduced is our summer traffic, how much smaller the prospects for patronage when campus is out-of-session. No doubt, there are some – including those who rely on a steady public income over private earnings – who would prefer Whitewater were less-trafficked all year long. A steady income from public employment (or a narrow professional clientele), leaves those so happily situated insensitive to the vagaries of the market.

Now, I am not a restaurateur, and I do not experience their daily uncertainties of patronage and opportunity. Nonetheless, like most people, I am able to see that these establishments are often like birds in the winter: they have a narrow margin for movement, lest they deplete their limited, available intake.

Regulatory or enforcement actions that drive those on campus to stay on campus, or to avoid choosing this campus, will leave Whitewater’s establishments with a market far smaller than fifteen-thousand people.

It will reduce Whitewater to a size effectually smaller than nearby towns.

Even a fraction of the total campus population is likely the difference between success or failure for many of Whitewater’s restaurants, including ones that serve (happily, successfully) many long-term patrons who have no connection to the campus.

The lost value to the city from a shift away from patronage at these establishments is far greater than the value of one or two public officials’ contributions. It would be worse than unfortunate if the actions of a public few ruined a thriving restaurant culture for this city. No public official of Whitewater has done more to advance this city’s image and value – not one, ever – than these private establishments do for the city through their own efforts.

We’ve made private gains; they’ll only be preserved and advanced by public restraint.