For years, Sara McCall has always carried around a few stamps. If she dines solo at a restaurant that leaves a branded postcard with the bill, she’ll fill it out then drop it in the nearest mailbox. Maybe it’s bound for her sister, a friend, lover, or perhaps someone with whom her relationship is more — ahem — complicated.

“It’s usually a little recounting of, ‘I’m sitting here on this day, and this is what I’ve seen or heard today,’” says McCall, a wine director and the co-owner of forthcoming KISS wine bar in Chicago. “Maybe it devolves into what I’m thinking about or reading in the paper. The best part? Friends and lovers would return it in kind, so I started getting postcards, too.”

In a time seemingly starved for tangible connection, restaurants are leaning into things like postcards that customers can take as keepsakes or to jot down a thank you note for staff.

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