LEGO builder Alex Eylar captures the mood of many with his latest creation Lonely Chef. Alex says he’s missing restaurants during the current lockdown, but in this melancholy composition he also manages to communicate the quiet despair felt by many in the hospitality industry. I’ve spent my entire working life in the bar and drinks trade, and right now it feels like I’m watching the whole industry slide off a cliff in slow-motion. On a less gloomy note, this is a wonderful LEGO model — clean lines and a simple colour scheme, nicely-lit, and well-photographed. I’m looking forward to when such creations depict a moment from our history, rather than from our present.
In the last two months, I’ve seen a lot of t-shirt designs pop up with social distancing or goofy TP themes. This is the closest I’ve seen to someone adapting Nighthawks.
“I’m watching the whole industry slide off a cliff in slow-motion” – if that happened, if all fell off a cliff, would it be tragic? Would mankind take a blow which would be hard to recover from?
Is the atmosphere achieved with the help of lighting or by simply using certain bricks?
Yes, if hospitality fell off a cliff it would be a tragedy. The hospitality and tourist industries directly employ millions of people around the world, with millions more in the wider supply chain providing bars, restaurants, and hotels with their food and drink. Often those employed in hospitality are living paycheck to paycheck, with no other revenue, and no safety-nets in the event of not having work – particularly in poorer countries. The direct economic consequences of a collapse in hospitality would be considerable.
And there’s the wider point about mental health and societal function — research has shown again and again that pubs and bars and cafes, the venues where we gather and talk, offer an essential sociable setting for a key part of what makes us human and happy. The fewer places there are for people to go, the more exclusive and expensive those places are likely to become – potentially depriving the less-affluent in particular of one of life’s small but essential pleasures.