Who is popular today?

A canal-side restaurant in Amsterdam held a trial run for their distance-conscious dinner service on April 27 during which pairs of patrons sat inside five newly installed, greenhouse-like glass enclosures. Restaurants, bars and other businesses in food service and hospitality were particularly impacted by COVID-19 restrictions, forcing many to come up with new ways to reopen and stay afloat while maintaining public health and safety measures. The owners of Mediamatic ETEN, in Amsterdam’s Oosterdok area, said they were “designing and testing new safe hospitality,” and planned to serve customers “amazing plant-based dinners in their own little greenhouse.” Mediamatic is calling the enclosures “Serres Séparées,” or “Separate Greenhouses,” after “chambres séparées,” the French name for a separate room in a restaurant or bar. “It suggest a sexy kind of intimacy, here things can happen that should remain hidden from plain sight and not be heard by all. We’ve decided to name our greenhouses in French too. Although what happens inside will be a lot more public…” Mediamatic wrote. The restaurant’s main space is also modeled after a greenhouse, according to their website. Credit: Mediamatic/Willem Velthoven & Anne Lakeman via Storyful