Millennial Pink is Dead, Long Live Grandma’s Carrot Wallpaper

Once the reigning champion of restaurant aesthetics, the millennial pink pastel invasion—spearheaded by Instagram darlings like Butcher’s Daughter (2012), Sqirl, and the carb-loaded empire Sweetgreen—has finally bit the dust. Even ultra-pink London hotspot Sketch ditched its cotton-candy vibe in 2023, giving way to a new nostalgia-fueled showdown that's basically Grandma's attic threw up on your dinner table. Welcome to the era of tchotchke-heavy eccentricity, where L.A.’s Kissa Corazón sports mismatched lamps and grandfather clocks, Nashville’s Ophelia’s Pizza Bar wallpaper is basically a thrift shop explosion, and Red Hook’s Pitt’s corrals straws in ceramic cows while flouting carrot-print wallpaper like a middle-aged poet's fever dream. Because when politics, plague, and too many oatmeals mix, people crave retro kitsch more than another avocado toast brunch.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

We traded millennial pink for grandma’s cluttered living room vibes, because nothing says post-2020 existential dread like eating dinner under a Tiffany lamp next to a ceramic cow full of straws.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Millennial minimalism got evicted and the new tenant is Grandma’s tchotchke hoard—welcome to the restaurant vibe shift where wallpaper, clocks, and mismatched lamps scream 'quarantine nostalgia.'

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

From pastel pantries to carrot wallpapers and ceramic cow straws: restaurants learned that when life gives you lockdowns, serve nostalgia with a side of clutter.

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