Tonight is a special occasion for this middle-aged couple – 25 years of marriage is worth some aged wine and Wagyu steak served on crisp white linens beneath the warm glow of shaded lamps. Cloth napkins and polished silverware portend an evening that requires more than a hint of elegance, one where conversation drifts through the room in voices just above a whisper. He has donned his blue blazer over a knit shirt that calls for the cuff links she gave him on their 20th anniversary. Normally, he avoids this shirt as the search for any cuff links is too much of a 10-second hassle. She has chosen a simple black cocktail dress and the pearls she wears only when it matters.
As the hostess leads them to their table, they ponder the notion that others are also likely celebrating a special occasion. Perhaps a promotion at work? A daughter’s college graduation? Other wedding anniversaries?
From the looks of the couple next to them, though, one wonders if they are celebrating a successful felony. Judging from the black big toenail of his left foot, the gentleman seems proud to show off his subungual hematoma – perhaps he stubbed it on the liquor store counter in his rush to the getaway car. Flip-flops weren’t meant for such endeavors.
And from the looks of her plaid pajama pants and Crocs, she must be celebrating the simple notion of having made up her own bed and finally getting out of the house. The only debate in her mind was whether to take time to change from the pajamas into yoga pants.
Ah, tonight it shall be pajamas!
In restaurants circa 2026, worlds collide. First it was churches, where one’s “Sunday Best” used to mean slacks, a tie and a jacket for men, and for a woman a dress that hid cleavage and shoulders and might also include a hat of sorts. Today, one is more likely to come across Nike Air Jordans than wingtips in the pew and at best an usher dressed for his 1 o’clock tee time.
Then came the airports, where once wearing a jacket was expected and offended no one, now armpit hair has become not just tolerated but vogue. Next was weddings and funerals, occasions especially noted for their ceremony and significance, where the growing percentage of attendees outfitted for a disco or a kegger has become so commonplace no one notices anymore.
Now that restaurants seem to have surrendered their final claim to ceremony, what’s next? Gym shorts at polo matches?
The heresy knows no bounds.
Perhaps the issue at hand is not simply casual attire itself, but when that casualness morphs into carelessness – when what one wears suggests not comfort, but indifference to the room entered and the occasion being celebrated.
Perhaps restaurants need not return to the Victorian formality of the past, but at least recognize the distinction between what is comfortable and what is disrespectful. Cindi Nicholson, owner of Remington’s Prime Steakhouse, seems to have incorporated that distinction into her restaurant’s philosophy.
“I want the environment to feel comfortable, to feel embraced,” Nicholson said. “I realize that in today’s society, not everyone wants to go home and get dressed up. If you do, we love it. But Remington’s was built on those horse people that work all day outside, the thoroughbred people on the racetracks.
“There’s no tank-tops allowed, no flip-flops – those are just a given, that it’s not appropriate to wear that to dinner. But if you’ve been coming straight from jumping horses for hours and might have dirty pants on… I’m okay with that. Come on over and tell us all about what ribbons you won and sit at the bar and have a great dinner.”
Nicholson’s distinction carries great import: The issue never has been whether a person arrives at dinner wearing denim or a jacket. A cowboy hat earned after a day on horseback tells a story, whereas a pair of flip-flops worn simply to assuage the inconvenience of changing tells quite another. One reflects a life being lived; the other suggests a moment unworthy of consideration.
The question then, is not whether every restaurant, wedding or funeral should require jackets and ties – even those who remember such expectations and even long for them still acknowledge that times change and circumstances matter. But what may have been lost in the evolution toward more casual attire is not merely the clothing itself, but the message that clothing once carried.
Carswell Ponder is 90 years old and has watched that message change. He remembers the days when coats and ties were worn to Gator football games, and a time when dressing up for an occasion was not seen as a burden, but a way of showing respect.
“I always felt like if a guy dressed up and his wife did as well, you felt like it was more of a special occasion and you feel like you need to be more cognizant of your behavior,” Ponder said. In other words, clothing itself was not ever the point – it was the reminder.
Ponder admits, however, that practicality has its place. At an outdoor funeral recently, he dressed in a coat and tie, following protocols, then became so overheated and dehydrated that he nearly passed out. Age and circumstances changed the equation and today he dresses more casually, not because the occasion matters less, but because his health matters more.
“If you dress in a casual manner, sometimes your mentality and your thinking is more casual,” Ponder said. “You don’t want to go into a restaurant and see someone inappropriately dressed and acting accordingly – it takes away from having a nice dinner out with family or friends.”
Pity the poor couple out for a special evening, then forced to sit next to Raider fan with his “Cruisin’ With The Tooz” shirt and the mid-drift twenty-something with a belly ring and Betty Boop tattoo. Their ritual has just been visually polluted by a live trailer of a Tod Browning film.
At what point did society deem comfort at all costs? At what point did society replace occasion with expediency? At one point did the dress code earn the same foul reputation as HOA rules? In 1966, restaurant patrons were forced to endure cigarette smoke, and that inconvenience has in 2026 been traded for enduring shoulder hair and discolored bunions.
Such visuals used to be relegated to biker bars or the ticket line of a Grateful Dead show. Today, they appear not only in Walmart or Dollar General, but even at Applebee’s or Chili’s where food is consumed. Jesus may not care what one wears to church on Sunday morning, but what’s inside the heart of the fellow wearing a Metallica shirt during communion may be worth exploring.
Somewhere along the way, society forgot its rituals, or at least how those rituals are acknowledged. Clothing has for many years been offered up as a quiet language to help define these rituals. Black is worn to funerals to preserve the dignity of the occasion. Gowns are worn to graduations because such achievement deserves ceremony. The symbolic purity of a white wedding dress does not ensure the sanctity of the nuptials, but it does acknowledge it.
And that is what proper attire accomplishes: not the creation of an occasion, but its acknowledgement. When t-shirts, jeans, shorts and flip-flops are commonplace at weddings, funerals, church services, graduations, and even dinner out, there is little acknowledgement that the occasion carries any more significance than then the simple act of waking up in the morning.
For that couple celebrating 25 years of marriage, the blue blazer, cuff links and pearls were never about impressing strangers or adhering to a code. They were about honoring a moment, one special enough for which to dress up.