Good to see Kate Picket and Richard Wilkinson cited in your article. IMO their book The Spirit Level should be part of the national curriculum. It’s fundamental that there is widespread understanding and appreciation that equality is better for everyone.

I genuinely can’t fathom this logic. Are we really so unashamed about prioritising vehicles over nature? About celebrating a business being “successful” when it largely excludes locals, and when so much of its operating model feels extractive rather than rooted in the community?

Well that made me giggle. It really is as ridiculous as you tell it. Bonkers.

Please get in touch if you'd like to see the deck we've built for how public restaurants can be embedded into our infrastructure.

This is not an idea for a new restaurant chain. It's a movement built on an urgent need for repairing the social connections that many of us feel today.

The opportunity is here. The need is clear. Now is the time to focus on tangible ideas that help us rediscover what we have in common.

This is about more than food, it's about rethinking what's possible when our systems are designed to be distributive, that includes; the governance, the finance, the purpose, the ownership and the networks - @doughnuteconomics.bsky.social.

How would it work?

We've developed a local partnership model where everyone benefits because the ideas that endure are the ones where we all win.

👍 Public restaurants don't need to be soup kitchens
👍 They don't need to rely on surplus food
👍 They an be commercially viable and professional run.

Imagine this:

🌮 Nutritious, price-capped meals, no more expensive than fast food.
🍽️ A small, regularly changing menu, supply led.
👫 Welcoming spaces to meet our community where everybody feels included.

In a world that pushes us apart online, shared meals bring us back in the same room, where understanding and connection can begin. Public restaurants offer a commercially viable, low-cost, high-impact way to address some of our greatest challenges, all starting with improving our social networks.

Please visit the link to know more about The Canteen Culture Coalition. score.future-foundations.co.uk/canteencultu...

Yes, it might need subsidy to start. But the endgame can be self-sustaining: a network that literally feeds itself.

We all know things need to change.
We’re just unsure where to start.
I say, let's start with a meal.

We need to build the market first - a dining model so joyful that people want to be part of it.

We can’t expect farmers to switch practices, or restaurateurs to reinvent their models, if there’s no clear signal that people will show up.

🧑‍🍳 Local livelihoods
Imagine a network of restaurants with shared resources, designed without profit extraction, enabling chefs and entrepreneurs to focus on what they do well, instead of survival.

💬 Loneliness
So many of us are missing our “middle ring” networks, those casual, everyday relationships that foster belonging. Social dining is an opportunity for us to rebuild those.

🍽️ Food-related health
Education alone isn’t solving our nutrition crisis. We need more abundant, joyful access to healthy meals and the community around them.

So what is social dining the answer to?

🍲 Community resilience
During WW2, institutional dining kept the country going. In times of future crisis, we could once again turn to public meals as social infrastructure.

We have a rich and vibrant restaurant culture in the UK. But:
Many venues are struggling to survive.
Many people simply can’t afford to participate.

Eating with others should not be a luxury.

The @jrf-uk.bsky.social actually includes occasional meals out in their Minimum Income Standard.