The noise level might keep some diners from returning, but I'd brave it just for another bite of that crispy oyster "chowder".
Ellen Flowers of Tourism Toronto, who has been out visiting the places where tourists are likely to be found, said on Oct. 5 that in some hotels those empty lobbies were beginning to fill up again and diners were returning to restaurants.
But this system also leads to congestion as diners return to the lines for seconds (or fourths).
Still, the aftertaste is sweet: when a diner returned for her left-behind datebook, even her Bic ballpoint had been put aside and lovingly recapped.
The woman, an Obama voter last time who said she was open to voting for Mr. Paul, even approached Mr. Paul's S.U.V. as he prepared to drive off and began shouting at him through the closed car door to return to the diner and meet her and her mother.
"I never went to school for film or food," Mr. Johnston said, although his wife, Amy McNutt, went to the University of Southern California and worked in the film industry for a few years before returning to Texas and opening the diner.
Looking up from his food, he glances at other diners, then returns to his theme.
When they learned one of the diners recently returned from serving in Iraq, the entire staff chipped in to pay for the couple's dinner.
Offering California-French food of unusual imagination and flavor, in a space which showcases beautifully their culinary vision, it will inspire diners to return time after time to explore the subtle offerings.
I once saw him take it down and shake it for a second, to the delight of a couple of female diners, then, sheepish, return it to hiding.
