It's a debate that's been around as long as restaurants have been in existence: Which night of the week is the best to eat out? Some people think there are certain nights during the week — compared to others — in which the food is the freshest, the specials are the tastiest, and the service is the best. Sure, it might seem like a minor dilemma to worry about, but it's no small potatoes when you decide to order the spicy tuna roll only to discover the raw fish has been sitting around for days.
You'd think the best nights of the week would be Friday or Saturday when it's the busiest and likely the best people are working to accommodate all the customers and serving the highest quality food, but the truth is, there's NO best night. Here's why:
If you try hard enough, you could arguably dream up an excuse why you shouldn't eat out any night of the week:
Monday: Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain famously scared diners away from restaurants on a Monday when he generalized in his first book, Kitchen Confidential, that food — particularly fish — has been sitting around since the weekend.
Tuesday: People who are the most paranoid about food making them sick think Monday's excuse could apply on Tuesday, too.
Wednesday: Wednesdays out are sooo quiet — that can't be a good thing, right?
Thursday: Why bother going out on Thursday, when the weekend is almost here?
Friday: Sometimes the best staff will get Fridays off because they're salaried and don't need (or want) to work the busiest shifts. If this is true … yikes! What if you get bad service?
Saturday: Same issues as Friday are at work here, too, just with more fellow diners competing for that potentially bad service.
Sunday: Typically, the restaurant's "B-Team" works on Sundays, serving up "brunch," which is just a fancy name for whatever Friday's and Saturday's customers didn't want.
As you can see, what people like to give as "excuses" for not eating out can be pretty lame, so here's the bottom line: A good restaurant is good all the time. It shouldn't matter when you go in.
What night do you think is the best to eat out?
Image via @MSG/Flickr