What Does 'Leave the Restaurant' Mean on Social Media? Its Hidden Message Revealed
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Woman sitting at a restaurant
TikTok is known for creating trends and phrases that truly just take off. And with the start of fall and Taylor Swift still holding a tight grip on social media, it makes sense that one of her most heart-wrenching songs inspired a new trend. However, while the song is, again, painfully sad, the trend itself is actually one that’s uplifting and about “leaving the restaurant.”
In 2020, Swift astoundingly released not one surprise album but two: folklore and evermore. And while folklore came out in July of that year, evermore solidified itself forever as a fall/winter album due to the fact that it came out in December and was irrevocably sad. The album has “champagne problems,” “tolerate it” and “marjorie,” just to name a few bangers. And it came with two bonus tracks on the deluxe edition: “right where you left me” and “it’s time to go.”
But if you aren’t familiar with what “leave the restaurant” means or don’t know the current “right where you left me” TikTok trend, that’s okay. We’ve got you covered.
Related: 10 Taylor Swift Songs That Reference Anxiety, According to Therapists
What is the “right where you left me” TikTok trend?
That first bonus track—“right where you left me”—is probably one of the most heartbreaking on this album (of course). The song is from the point of view of a devastated person who is watching other people live their lives, but she’s stuck right where her lover left her.
So it only makes sense that this devastatingly sad song’s bridge—something Swift is known for—describes just what “still at the restaurant” looks like: “Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?
Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?
Time went on for everybody else, she won't know it
She's still twenty-three inside her fantasy
How it was supposed to be
Did you hear about the girl who lives in delusion?
Breakups happen every day, you don't have to lose it
She's still twenty-three inside her fantasy
And you're sitting in front of me
While the song has taken on so many trends and meanings since it was released in 2020, the current “right where you left me” TikTok trend is actually a hopeful one that flips the meaning of the song on its head. Basically, people share stories of how they finally “left the restaurant,” AKA were able to move on from a particularly painful heartbreak.
Related: Good Riddance! Get Ready for All Things Bigger and Better With 100 Moving on Quotes
What does it mean to “leave the restaurant” on TikTok?
"Leave the restaurant" means to walk away from a bad relationship or a hard breakup.
For example, TikTok user @like_daylight13 made a very touching TikTok to the “right where you left me” trend. While the song played in the background, she wrote, “When I finally got the courage to say I wanted to leave the restaurant. I called my dad and told him. He called me a taxi, paid the bill and got me home. For him, I won’t go back even for a quick coffee.”
There are obviously a lot of euphemisms in there, but “leave the restaurant,” here, means that she was brave enough to leave her toxic or abusive relationship. She no longer was “stuck at the restaurant,” either waiting for her ex to come back to her or waiting for him to treat her right. And she was able to ask her dad to come “get” her—AKA help her move on and be her support. Not going back for "coffee" means she won't even entertain the small thought of talking to that person again because of how strong she was to leave in the first place.
Related: The #1 Thing To Say to Someone Who's Going Through a Breakup—Plus, What *Not* To Say
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One of the top comments wrote, “My dad stayed alive long enough to watch me leave the restaurant” while another wrote, “I wouldn’t have been able to leave the restaurant had it not been for my parents' unwavering strength and love. So grateful.”
And this is, of course, just one example of the trend. There are a ton of other videos of people sharing their stories about the time they were able to “leave the restaurant.”
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And of course, the metaphors don't stop, with "browsing the menu" or sometimes walking by the "restaurant" also meaning that sometimes people still keep tabs on their ex, but they still aren't visiting again.
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What does the song “right where you left me” by Taylor Swift mean?
So, again, the evermore song "right where you left me” is about someone staying in the same mindset and position that their lover left them in, all in hopes that they’ll come back for them. Or maybe not even for them to come back, but just because they can’t move on.
In the pre-chorus, Swift sings,
Help, I’m still at the restaurant
Still sitting in a corner I haunt
Instead of moving on, she sat at that booth, letting “dust [collect] on her pinned-up hair” in a similar way that Augustine in “august” (on folklore) waited for James to call her at the drop of a hat to meet behind the mall.
In January 2021, when the two bonus tracks dropped, Swift shared on Twitter (now known as X), “The first is a song about a girl who stayed forever in the exact spot where her heart was broken, completely frozen in time.”
And in the chorus, which closes out the song, Swift sings over and over:
You left me, you left me no, oh, you left me no
You left me no choice but to stay here forever.
The reason it’s so sad is because she doesn’t leave by the end of the song and still is stuck right in that booth or table where her heart was crushed. The song is one of pure despair, with no plan or desire to move past that heartbreak. So the “leave the restaurant” trend is actually a really powerful metaphor for taking that agency back and doing what Swift couldn’t do in the song. And maybe, while doing so, giving other people stuck at their own restaurants the power to leave as well.
Next up, if you want more Swift songs that are quite sad, these 14 Taylor Swift songs reference depression, according to mental health experts.
