Millennials and Amtrak Both Had a Grudge Against the Dining Car... but Who Killed It Off?

Millennials killed … let’s see *spins wheel* … the Amtrak dining car?

Amtrak’s dining cars on long-distance trains will soon be killed, the Washington Post reports, bringing to an end a decades-old American tradition of making reservations for set mealtimes, sitting down next to fellow passengers at communal tables, and receiving white-tablecloth service and freshly prepared food made in an onboard kitchen. Instead, there will be prepackaged food options — such as chicken fettuccine and Creole shrimp — that passengers can eat in their rooms or in a new version of the dining car that still has booths, but no tablecloths. (Amtrak told the Post that it may eventually get rid of the booths altogether for a “contemporary” “lounge” setting.)

Amtrak is taking a cue from Boomers and blaming millennials for the change, citing a desire to lure a younger generation of riders who just want to look at their phones in private all day. “Some people really like [the dining car] and view it as sort of a nostalgic train experience,” Peter Wilander, Amtrak’s vice president of product development and customer experience, told the Post. “Some people, especially our new millennial customers, don’t like it so much. They want more privacy, they don’t want to feel uncomfortable sitting next to people.”

Conveniently, this change will also save the perennially financially beleaguered railroad an estimated $2 million a year — while food expenditures will be increasing, Amtrak told the Times Union, labor and inventory costs will both be going down. With plans to allow passengers to preorder their meals when booking tickets online, Amtrak is essentially becoming more like an airline — which makes sense, considering its CEO Richard Anderson was CEO of Delta Airlines from 2007 to 2016.

These changes, euphemistically dubbed “flexible dining service,” will roll out on October 1, affecting some one-night routes east of Chicago, with other shifts slated for next year. It’s sad news for those of us with romantic notions of ornate, old-timey dining cars, sure, but if you were boarding a train with high expectations for your Orient Express murder mystery party, you probably haven’t seen what dining cars look like these days.

Update: September 25: Amtrak clarified in an email that Amtrak’s traditional dining service will seven overnight routes (California Zephyr, Coast Starlight, Empire Builder, Southwest Chief, Sunset Limited, Texas Eagle) and on the Auto Train between Lorton, Virginia, and Sanford, Florida. These “flexible dining service” changes affect overnight trains on the East Coast, as originally stated.

And in other news…

• The Trump administration is fueling a weird backlash to healthy school lunches. [Mother Jones]
• Nestle is adopting its Japanese playbook for the U.K. and selling made-to-order luxury Kit-Kats for 14 pounds ($17 USD) a bar. [The Guardian]
• José Andrés is back in the U.S. after serving 400,000 meals in the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian. [@AnnieMcP09/Twitter]
• Facing a world with increasing droughts and unpredictable weather, researchers are studying how to grow wine grapes in parched land. [NYT]
• Some teens took a wild ride from Florida to Canada in a car they retrofitted to run on used fast-food oil. [The Takeout]
• Could insects become a more environmentally friendly alternative to feeding factory-farmed animals soy and fish meal feed? [NYT]
• Another food Halloween costume for your consideration: White Claw. [Popsugar]
• The New Yorker goes long on Impossible Foods. [New Yorker]
• J. Kenji López-Alt’s first column for the Times is about boiling eggs. [NYT]
• This tweet really is bringing out the worst in people:

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]