Let Those who Merely wish to Eat ...

I have a problem with the sign displayed in the windows of many popular fast food establishments exhorting potential customers to visit "justeat.com". I've even seen this same proclamation on the sides of trailers in fields bordering the M4 and M25 motorways upon which it is my misfortune to have to drive quite regularly.

   This sort of advertising or whatever you may call it has to say something about the sort of clientele that these outlets wish to attract, and I do wonder if it lacks any degree of discernment or good taste at all. In fact in this age of epidemic obesity and the diseases it results in such attitudes cause me to feel a degree of despair.

     I well remember a highly acclaimed restaurant that had in its entrance a piece of verse that clearly aimed to discourage the sort of customers that establishments of the "just east" wish to attract. It began "Let those who merely wish to eat/ Enter a place where gluttons meet".

     I can't remember the rest of it (and cannot find it on the search engines either). This fine restaurant has long closed. Perhaps changing tastes were the cause of its demise.