Do you judge a restaurant by your fellow diners?

• Almost Veggie Houston
• Do your dining-room companions affect your appetite?

Dining out with friends in Kansas City can be a delicate balancing act as one needs to accommodate for picky eaters, dietary restrictions and commuter fatigue (attempting to get folks downtown from Shawnee and vice versa). But a friend the other night gave me her only real rule governing dining out, and I’m still processing whether it’s a horrible thing or a genuine reflection of what’s being served.

Her coda is that she will not eat at a given restaurant if everyone in the dining room is overweight. But that’s all of America, you say… It’s not, but this might knock out more places than you think, particularly those of the (delicious) biscuits and gravy or buffet variety. I’ll admit that an empty dining room can be a big red flag to me if it should be bustling with the lunch or dinner rush. Do you judge a restaurant by your fellow diners?