Early bird dinner? Don’t mind if we do… It’s a preference that has become more mainstream post-COVID lockdowns, according to restaurant booking service TheFork. They say there’s been an uptick in the number of dinner reservations made between 5-6pm in Australia – and that’s balanced out by late-night bookings dropping. One restauranteur from Sydney says she’s noticed that her place is packed by 6pm, and it clears out earlier than pre-pandemic. It’s suggested that COVID has changed people’s eating habits – while many worked from home and the space-time continuum melted away, people didn’t resist the urge to eat early. As Wes Lambert from the Australian Foodservice Advocacy Body says, “5 is the new 7pm”. We’ve been saying that for years…