This made my heart pretty heavy. I learned about Prune and Gabrielle from "Mind of a Chef", and her cuisine just seemed absolutely fascinating. It was definitely among the most intriguing of that series. I had planned to make a beeline there the next time I was in New York.<p>Who knows exactly why the restaurant was unable to transition to the takeout model that many are now subsisting on (at least here in LA). Maybe it's just that NYC has been hit particularly hard by the virus and peoples' habits have been too-far eroded there.<p>In any case, I hope she is able to continue at a later time. It's sad to think of all the truly good small restaurants with visionary chefs going under and leaving us with very little other than mega-conglomerates to serve us food outside the home.
I'm sure it was wonderful, but the reality is that automation is rapidly changing this business. Check out the restaurant Spyce up in Boston. The orders are taken by iPads and then robots mix the food. There's only one person who takes it from the robot and hands it to you. They give the person a fancy title (garde manger) to make the job seem important, but I'm guessing they could easily replace the human with an extra bit of robotics. The person's real job is to call the police or the owners if something goes wrong.