Public diners
Scotland has extensive social infrastructure to support our wellbeing. From public libraries, parks and leisure centres, to housing and the NHS, the state invests in and maintains institutions and systems for our collective benefit. Yet, very little is in place in relation to food.
We believe we need a new piece of social infrastructure - a public diner - to make it easier for all of us to eat well.
Public diners are state-supported restaurants. They serve good meals at prices everyone can afford.
Public diners aren’t charity nor luxury - they are everyday eating places. On a High Street and open all week, they are convenient places to eat solo, with friends or with family.
They operated in the UK between 1940-60s under the banner of British and Civic Restaurants. At their peak there were over 2,000 of these operating throughout the UK (comparable to the number of Greggs today). Similar models can be found in other countries, for instance Turkish public restaurants, Mexican public dinning rooms or Polish milk bars.
What could public diners do for us today?
Public diners are a holistic food system intervention: for public health, climate and the right to food.
They could form an important part of our social infrastructure, alongside public libraries, leisure centres, and schools. They could become a valuable part of community life, creating valuable third spaces. They have the potential to contribute to many of the policy objectives including 20-minute neighbourhoods, ending the need for food banks, local food growing strategy, community empowerment, the Good Food Nation ambition, and healthy diets. They are firmly in line with the human rights centred approach which the Government wants to progress
Our work to date
For the past 3 years we have been talking to communities across the country, wanting to understand their perspective on public diners.
We are currently touring Scotland with an exhibition and a series of pop-up suppers. The exhibition has been made possible thanks to the work by over 50 community researchers who explored the history of British and Civic Restaurants through archival research and oral history interviews. They also helped us find and learn about contemporary examples in Poland, China, Brazil and Turkey.
In 2024 we hosted the first Public Diners Conference to co-design the concept with 150+ citizens. The report we published was based on the work we did together, and earlier insight from community reviewers.
Read the report
