Pre-Meal for Jul 1, 2026Everything We Take for Granted

Happy Wednesday!

In general? Social media stinks.

Most of the content I consume is either so bleak it’s like rubbernecking at a highway accident, or so silly I can feel myself getting dumber with every minute I watch.

So the rare occasions when the algorithm bucks those trends bring me an outsized amount of joy. The most recent example: watching people from all over the world visiting the U.S. for the World Cup, and falling in love with America for the most ridiculous, endearing reasons.

Giddy Norwegians at Waffle House; Africans obsessing over LongHorn Steakhouse; everyone freaking out about Buc-ee's.

These posts make me so proud to be an American—and to work in hospitality, because everything blowing these tourists away is rooted in it: the bigness, the generosity, the fun America is so good at.

And yeah, I know a bunch of these posts aren't real (though I'm pretty sure the Scots really did drink all the beer in Massachusetts.) In fact, my favorite—a hilarious, deadpan ode to the free basket of chips and salsa that appear when you sit down at a Mexican restaurant—has definitively been debunked.

Still, there are so, so many good lines in it, including this one: “I ate with the gravity the moment deserved.”

I don’t care if it’s a parody; he’s right. It’s easy to take a bottomless bowl of free chips and salsa for granted. But seeing so many people from elsewhere (and the comedians impersonating them) celebrate these gestures has nudged me to notice them again, and to rededicate myself to creating more of them.

Have a good service,

Will