Diners Are Increasingly Making a Request That Drives Servers Crazy. But You Can’t Argue With the Reason Behind It.

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

When I go out for a nice-ish dinner these days, I’m not entirely sure how to go about ordering it. If my prerequisite salad now costs $20, what else can I reasonably order to feel satisfied without the queasy feeling that I’ve cut into my monthly rent budget? What size is a so-called main? How much will my companions, half of whom take GLP-1s, want to eat?

With a few exceptions, the dish that tends to suffer in this new reality is the one that used to be the reason Americans loved going out to dinner. I’m talking about the big, beautiful entrée.

The main course, or final boss, has traditionally taken the form of a pasta heap big enough for three (for one) or a hulking slab of protein with a couple sides. It’s Dinner, the kind that will reliably fill you up tonight and maybe again tomorrow when you reheat the leftovers.

The small-plates phenomenon, which started with a wave of tapas restaurants in the late 1990s and early 2000s and is now into its third decade, punched some holes in this oversized fantasy. But lately other factors are threatening, too: rising operating costs, soaring ingredient and fuel prices, and a growing cultural backlash against industrially farmed, “cheap” food that’s reshaping the conversation around what constitutes a good value. Meanwhile, some 11 percent of the U.S. self-injects appetite suppressants.

When we do order entrées, many of us don’t want to tackle them alone. “Can we split the burger and fries?” is a request servers are hearing more and more often, as they watch their tip percentages dwindle. Are we falling out of love with the entrée, or was our fondness for it perhaps overstated in the first place?

“Gone is the American supersize meal,” Jenn Crovato, the chef and owner of 1310 Kitchen & Bar in D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood, declared to me. “I think that’s kind of in the past.”

Unless you’re at a steakhouse, it’s increasingly hard to distinguish entrées or mains, which are sometimes disguised as “Plates.” On the menu at the Tusk Bar in New York City, a $24 green leaf salad with green goddess dressing counts as a Plate, alongside a $32 burger and $39 steak frites. I’m fairly certain eight curried mussels with a side of rice for $22 at Chicago’s hot new Thai joint Taan is a small plate, not a main—even if the dish sits near the $49 whole deep-fried sea bass on the menu.

Our relationship to the entrée is increasingly taking on the fraught, awkward feel of a couple who can’t seem to get on the same page about being exclusive versus dating around. Two friends in New York recently lamented that restaurant mains keep disappointing them.

“Most menus have too many dishes, and then the mains end up being throwaway,” one told me.

“I’d rather share a bunch of apps than eat a $75 lamb chop,” said another.

When I issued a social media poll gauging diners’ relationship with the entrée, half of the dozen respondents said they’re often most excited about appetizers.