In an op-ed for Food & Wine, the restaurant activist John deBary writes that “the worldview presented in Setting the Table represents a fantastic North Star, but like the star, it is unattainable as an actual destination, and it is unfair to act otherwise… for people looking to educate themselves on the realities of working in restaurants, it’s important to look past the rosy picture Setting the Table paints and to question the bend-over-backwards mentality it champions. It might be great for the customer, but it comes at a real cost to the employee — a cost that is too high.”