“The laid-back cafes, coffee shops, diners, barbecue joints, pizzerias, and pupuserias that dot every neighborhood and town—they may seem basic and unmemorable, but in functional, everyday terms, they’re the quintessential American restaurants, doing the unsung work of knitting together the social fabric, one meal or cup of coffee at a time. [...] These restaurants are trying to survive, trying to do right by the communities that sustain them and the communities they sustain.”