Miss dining out? This Illinois couple turned their van into a ‘portable dining room’
When the coronavirus pandemic made eating in restaurants a thing of the past, an Illinois couple got creative to preserve one of their favorite pastimes: dining out.
Date nights have always been a key part of Kim and Doug White’s relationship.
“It’s Doug’s love language,” Kim White told the Chicago Tribune. “From the very beginning, we love to go out to eat. It’s been the thing that we do.”
In Illinois, indoor dining has been restricted statewide since Nov. 2 — it was banned earlier in some counties — and dining outside in the Prairie State isn’t exactly pleasant during the colder months.
So the Lombard couple — married 26 years — hatched a plan: They’d turn their van into a “portable dining room.”
“I know how hard it is for a restaurant to stay in business even without a pandemic threat,” Doug White wrote in an Oct. 23 Facebook post. “We turned the Mikey Mobile into a portable dining room. We’ll do what we can to support our eateries...”
Kim went to Menards and bought a table, then found a red-checkered tablecloth — at Doug’s request — from Restaurant Depot, the Tribune reported. They strung lights through the van and nabbed a white tablecloth to keep on-hand for when they visit fancier restaurants.
“Total investment: Under $100,” Doug told WLS.
The duo’s first meal in the van? Pulled pork and smoked turkey from Mission BBQ, a restaurant chain in the eastern U.S.
As of Dec. 22, the pair has visited more than a dozen restaurants, enjoying cuisine from pizza and pasta to sushi and sandwiches in the back of their van. Some of the Whites’ grandkids have even joined them for a meal in the mobile dining room.
“You can get the takeout. It puts it in a little box, and you bring it home, you’re eating out of the box, where’s the spirit in that?” Kim told WLS.
The pair launched a Facebook page called Van Dining where they document their date nights and post photos of their entrees.
They also post photos of the restaurants, some of which they’ve chosen for their association with the Ride Janie Ride Foundation, an organization that provides financial support to those battle blood cancers.
Doug White was diagnosed with cancer over the summer and the foundation stepped in to help, WLS reported.
He often provides updates on his fight on his Facebook page..
“When you get a diagnosis like we’ve had this year, there’s an urgency for joy,” Kim told the outlet. “I’m going to find the joy as much as we can because you never really know, and that’s the thing with this pandemic, you never really know.”
Other pandemic-era dining solutions
The Whites aren’t the only restaurant patrons getting creative with their dining.
Chad Hart in Colorado takes his own patio furniture to restaurants that don’t offer outdoor dining so he can support the establishments, KUSA reported. He loads up a table, chairs and his own heater. Sometimes, he’ll even play a little music.
“I turn on a little music and make it my evening. It’s my time to eat, so I make it as fun as possible,” he told the outlet.
Hart plans to choose a new restaurant every week, KUSA reported.
In New York, diners have opted to just brave the cold.
After a snowstorm dropped a reported 10 inches in New York City last week, diners were still seen bundled up and eating at restaurants’ sidewalk tables — some of which still had snow piled on top, Today reported.
This story was originally published December 22, 2020 at 1:19 PM with the headline "Miss dining out? This Illinois couple turned their van into a ‘portable dining room’."