Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

Wow. The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat is my best example from what I've read. Perhaps The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe could also qualify.

What are your ideas?

Listopia: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Last Night at the Lobster would work for this.

Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love

Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien and Murder with Fried Chicken and Waffles by A.L. Herbert are both first books in mystery series where the protagonist works at or owns a restaurant. They go to other places, but the restaurants are very important settings.

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen sounds like it's set in a kitchen in a memoir-recipe format.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly is on my tbr and I think I'll end up reading it for this prompt!

I'll be reading Kitchens of the Great Midwest.

Gil's All Fright Diner was a hilarious read! It looks like it would be a horror or scary book, and there are some elements of scary movies like vampires and werewolves, but it's actually super campy and the characters are hilarious. Plus, it's a page-turner.

One of the books in recent post on the GR blog fits, I think, and sounds fun: Arsenic and Adobo

Anthony Bourdain’s Bone in the Throat takes place in a restaurant and was one of his fiction novels before he got big. It’s a fun kind of crime thriller if you’re into that.

The Hundred-Foot Journey
The Sol Majestic

I have A Pho Love Story on my 2021 releases list and it sounds like the restaurants will at least play an important role.

I was thinking about Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, whose title seems to indicate the setting. Can anyone verify that is the case, if you've read it?

Sweetbitter! I assumed someone would have already mentioned it but it seems I managed to get in first. I almost wish I hadn't read it this summer now!

Would Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber count? I can't tell from the synopsis if they spend any time in the cafe?

Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune

Here are some restaurant-themed cozy mystery series:
https://cozy-mysteries-unlimited.com/...

Number One Chinese Restaurant
Quentins
And any number of bakery-cafe-coffeehouse books, I imagine?
With the Fire on High can be stretched into a restaurant. Part of it takes place in various restaurants, and some of it in a school kitchen setting [that doubles as food prep/restaurant later on].
The Dinner

I've been intrigued about The Dinner, so I think I'll go with this.

Do you think Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise could count here? It's not one restaurant, but I'm assuming most the memoir's action takes place in all the different restaurant Reichl has reviewed along the way.

(I'm really trying to keep this year's list drawing from books I already own, so my choices here are slim...)

Sherri wrote: "Do you think Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise could count here? It's not one restaurant, but I'm assuming most the memoir's action takes place in all the d..."

I just got done reading this one. Much of the book is set in various restaurants. There are also scenes at her residence, shopping for disguise pieces, and at the NYT offices. I'd estimate it is 65% restaurant and 35% other places, if that helps.

My two suggestions are both romances. I feel like I've read more set in restaurants, but I can't remember them. I might add more later.

The Tourist Attraction a character owns a diner
Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors one character is a chef, another owns a restaurant

Brandon wrote: "Sherri wrote: "Do you think Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise could count here? It's not one restaurant, but I'm assuming most the memoir's action takes pla..."

Thanks for the guidance! I might just count the estimate 2/3rds percentage as close enough. (Especially if I can't find anything else on my shelves!)

The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle. I think it would also qualify for magical realism.

I read The Strawberry Hearts Diner for book in a rural setting this year, and a lot of the story takes place in that diner.

Lynn wrote: "Here are some restaurant-themed cozy mystery series:
https://cozy-mysteries-unlimited.com/..."

Thank you for this list! It seems I need to read You Cannoli Die Once.

One that immediately comes to mind is Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe . Bummer I already read it, LOL.

Beth wrote: "Would Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber count? I can't tell from the synopsis if they spend any time in the cafe?"

Yes, it would definitely work.

Ohhh, I just figured out that 3 of my favorite books are set in restaurants:

Skinny Legs and All
Jitterbug Perfume
The Dinner

The first two defy genre - they could probably work for genre hybrid.
The last is pretty intense and it's a marmite book. Love it or hate it, and I fell on the love side. It still stays with me, and I still describe and indescribable mood a "my heart still hurts for Faso".

Are we extending this topic to include cafes?

If so, The 24-Hour Café by Libby Page would work

I was thinking The Second Chance Supper Club by Nicole Meier. One of the sisters opens a clandestine supper club in her home.

I enjoy the indigo teashop cozy mystery series. The descriptions of all the things they make always make me hungry.

Ruth wrote: "One that immediately comes to mind is Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe . Bummer I already read it, LOL."

Didn't a sequel come out recently?

Got this in a book bin for a couple dollars last year. Think I will give it a try for this one.

Wondering if Matt Wallace’s Sin du Jour series would fit here?

I'm reading Quentins by Maeve Binchy for this prompt

Lisa wrote: "Ruth wrote: "One that immediately comes to mind is Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe . Bummer I already read it, LOL."

Didn't a sequel come out recently?"

Yep, The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that The Name of the Wind, and by extension the rest of the Kingkiller Chronicles could qualify for this category. It is framed as a story within a story, and it is being told in an inn/tavern/pub - the restaurant style in keeping with the medievalesque fantasy setting.

Kim wrote: "I was thinking about Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, whose title seems to indicate the setting. Can anyone verify that is the case, if you've read it?"

Yes! I love this book! The restaurant plays a recurring role, and I think is symbolic of Pearl's wish to get and hold her family together. (I had to check the synopsis to be sure that it was as important to the story as I remembered, and I think it is... It's in the name and the cover illustration, after all!)

Beth wrote: "Would Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber count? I can't tell from the synopsis if they spend any time in the cafe?"

Beth wrote: "Would Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber count? I can't tell from the synopsis if they spend any time in the cafe?"

I read some of the reviews, and people say that many of the characters are regulars who come to the cafe for the Blackbird Pie, so I'd say, YES! It would work, since the cafe seems to be the hub of the story(s).

I was wondering if that wonderful movie that immediately comes to mind, was based on a book, and it looks like it was! The One-Hundred Foot Journey, by Richard C. Morais.

Teri wrote: "Lisa wrote: "Ruth wrote: "One that immediately comes to mind is Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe . Bummer I already read it, LOL."

Didn't a sequel come out recently?"

Yep..."

Rats! I read the blurb on the book, and it looks like the Whistle Stop Cafe had been torn down by the time Bud comes back to town in this book.

Now, I MUST find a prompt so I can read this! Does anyone have any ideas? I usually fill up the prompt to "read a favorite prompt from a previous year", and it's a blank slate now... still, nothing is coming to mind! Maybe a "book that makes you feel nostalgic" from 2019?

I think that it will work for a book with 3 generations!

This is a bit of a stretch, but a lot of the action of Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie takes place in a restaurant. Definitely not the entire book though.

For all you pierogi fans out there, there's The Best Polish Restaurant in Buffalo

Tweet Cute is, true to it's a name, a very cute book!

Kim wrote: "Rats! I read the blurb on the book, and it looks like the Whistle Stop Cafe had been torn down by the time Bud comes back to town in this book.

Now, I MUST find a prompt so I can read this! Does anyone have any ideas?"

- It's got fewer than 1000 reviews.
- Maybe you'd like to visit? The restaurant is gone, but you could still hang out with the people.
- Maybe it's a book about forgetting? It's a ghost town, the memories of the bustling railroad town are fading, etc.

I'm thinking of rereading the Hitchhiker's Quintet and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe fits it nicely!

I am thinking of reading The School of Essential Ingredients.

I read The Dishwasher and Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club for 2020 prompts, both of which would work for this.

Meal is primarily based in a restaurant and was one of my (and my six year old's, although it's not aimed at kids) favourite books of 2020. It's also a graphic novel, if you want to double dip and don't typically read them.