1995

Before seamless, before grubhub, before uber eats, before the internet (!), when ordering food delivery, first you rummaged through a drawer full of paper menus to consider your options, decided what you wanted, called the restaurant, spoke to an actual human, told them your order, had them read it back to you and miraculously it all worked and the food came to your door!

I ordered Chinese food a good amount back then (and still do). I created the “Happy Holidays” menu by making a xerox copy of an actual paper menu from our local Chinese restaurant except the restaurant name was covered up and in its place, I drew “Happy Holidays” aiming to approximate the font that most Chinese restaurants used back then. That was the start of my font mimic-ing that became an artistic endeavor of it’s own.

For my delivery outfit, Geoffrey borrowed the white shirt, white apron and checkered pants from Delizia, a local pizzeria around the corner on 92nd and 2nd. He also borrowed their delivery bike, seen in the background. I put together a fake bundle of food in a paper bag with the “Happy Holidays” menu stapled to the outside of the bag. We photographed this on the upper east side but I no longer lived there so we had to look around for an apartment building where we could take the photo. We wanted a lobby door that had a full length pane of glass so you could see my whole body through it. I don't remember whose door this is or how we got in, but knowing Geoff and I, once we were propped and ready to go, it's quite possible that we saw someone leaving a building with a full-paned door and slipped in behind them.

The second version here shows how wildly different the hand-coloring could be from card to card.