One of the best things about tattoos are that they aren’t prevalent amongst only one type of person. Those days where you could tell what kind of a person someone was simply because they had a tattoo are long gone and buried. Good riddance, too. There are people from every walk of life, in every type of career who can attest to being in love with tattoos.
Still, despite this expansion and maturation of what it means to be tattooed, some aspects of society still remain stuck back in the days when tattoos were associated with a lower class, lower calibre of people. It’s only a matter of time before these lingering reminders of the past are done away with for good and it’s people like Jesse Sandlin who are helping to push tattoos further into the mainstream.
Sandlin, a former Top Chef contestant, has just paired up with the owner of Baltimore’s Rosina Gourmet, Jim Lancaster, to come up with a brand new wine bar in Baltimore, Maryland. From the sounds of things, the wine bar will host a pretty decent selection of wines and cheeses, with much of the food coming from local sources and the cheese being shipped in from all of the great cheese making regions of the world.
So why exactly do cheese and wine matter to people with tattoos? Well, given that “fine dining” has as much of a pompous reputation as tattoos have had a negative reputation, it’s very encouraging to see a chef who is serious about her food and relaxed enough to understand that the caliber of a customer is not determined by whether or not they have tattoos.
“Sandlin also said the restaurant will not be a coat-and-tie kind of place.
A person like myself, who has all these ridiculous tattoos, I should be able to come eat at the restaurant where I work at and not feel uncomfortable,” she said. “It will be focused on the quality of food, quality of wine, quality of service, but in a fun, casual atmosphere.”
Whether Sandlin realizes it or not, creating an environment that is serious about food but not about judging people helps to knock down, or at the very least weaken those invisible walls that were so long ago built up around things like fine dining. Every time a tolerance for tattoos rears its head in a new sector of society, it’s a great thing, something that helps to chip away at misguided notions and makes a motion toward creating a new definition of what’s “normal”.