The rise of solo dining

Do you like to eat alone by yourself in your favourite restaurant? Do you feel guilty sitting alone by yourself at a table while other tables around you are crammed with people? Do you feel upset when other people assume you want company but you just want to be by yourself? Here's something interesting for you to consider...

Not too long ago solo dining was synonymous with a greasy takeaway scoffed down in the car, or room service consumed in the sterile anonymity of your hotel room.

Today, a growing number of us live alone - including one out of every seven adults in the US - so the stigma surrounding solo dining has started to dissipate, says Aaron Allen, a Florida-based global restaurant consultant.

With more and more people choosing to dine out alone, Mr Allen says savvy restaurants around the world are trying to make themselves more welcoming to solo diners, for example by fitting more bar seating, or encouraging waiting staff to be more attentive to customers sitting on their own.

"We've never had anyone try to take advantage of our policy, though we don't extensively advertise it," Mr Beckta says.

"We just trust our customers, and have found that if you do the right thing by them, they'll take care of you in return."

Aaron Allen says there are a number of societal reasons behind the growth in the number of solo diners.

"Divorce rates are higher, and people are waiting longer before getting married," he says.

"[As a result], there are way more singles in the marketplace, and they're much more affluent in terms of what they spend on food and living expenses."

Official figures confirm that the purchasing power of single people is vast, with the Bureau of Labour Statistics calculating that singletons in the US spend $1.9 trillion (£1.1tn) per year.

In London almost a third of homes are now occupied by just one person, while in New York and Paris it is more than half. And in cities such as Stockholm, 60% of residents live on their own.

Source: here