The expansion of the restaurant trade was one of the unexpected ricochets from the French Revolution of 1789. As aristocrats lost their heads, their chefs lost their jobs. Thrown on to the streets, they found a new living opening public restaurants and feeding hungry revolutionaries.
Le Grand Véfour, which opened just before the upheaval in 1784 in the arcades of Paris’s Palais Royal and is still running today, was one of the grandest examples. Its signature fricassee de poulet Marengo celebrates one of Napoleon’s most famous military victories.
But if restaurants were born out of revolution, many of them may die in one, too. The latest technological revolution is disintermediating the intermediary, enabling buyers and sellers to match their needs in faster, cheaper and more direct ways.