RESERVED SEATS
Downtown restaurateur has fun lowering heat on political divisions
With seating at restaurants limited to half of normal capacity because of COVID-19, the owner of Trattoria da Luigi in Royal Oak decided to have some fun and maybe cool off some political divisiveness at the local level.
Luigi Cutraro a few days ago installed four-sided fixtures over his unused dining tables showing they are “reserved” for well-known Democrats and Republicans and their spouses.
A table for President Joseph Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden is next to one for former Vice President Mike Pence. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a reserved table, too, as do former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
Cutraro calls the concept “Luigi’s United Plates of America.”
Born in Sicily, Cutraro came to the U.S. as a teen and has been in the local restaurant business for decades.
“I’ve been in this country since 1973 and I just hate to see this division in America,” he said. “You’ve even got it between family members now. It’s absurd.”
Diners so far have been taking to the mix of different reserved seats and Cutararo’s effort in good humor.
“The other day we had some Republicans having their picture taken by the Pelosi table, and Democrats taking pictures at the Trump table,” Cutraro said. “We had a little fun with people and they were laughing.”
It’s the American way to laugh, smile and enjoy food and wine, regardless of whether one is dining with an ally or adversary, he added.
Dining to resolve differences has a significant precedent in U.S. history dating back to 1790 when then-Vice President Thomas Jefferson hosted a dinner at his New York lodgings with adversary Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and
then-U.S House Rep. James Madison, an ally.
The dinner famously became known as the Compromise of 1790 and resolved a deadlock in Congress. Madison and Jefferson got an agreement to locate the nation’s capital in the District of Columbia. In exchange Hamilton was able to have the national government take over and pay debts that states ran up during the American Revolution.
That dinner scene was dramatized more recently in the hit musical “Hamilton.”
Cutraro may or may not be aware of that historical dinner, but he said presentday divisiveness is hurting
the U.S. and its people.
“The bottom line is I believe the United States cannot afford not to be united,” he said. “The world cannot afford it. Lately, it seems like people don’t get that.”
Cutraro said his table
“reservations” for Democratic and Republican leaders is his own fun way to put diners at ease and forget about divisions.
“This is not about politics,” he said. “This is about positivity, not negativity.”