For 14 years, Canon has marked the occasion with a St. Valentine’s Day Massacre event. Flyers warn that “any couples outwardly showing displays of affection (such as holding hands, kissing or whispering sweet nothings)” risk the wrath and judgment of fellow diners, as expressed via “one (or all) of the 24 water guns placed throughout the room.”
The gathering, Mr. Boudreau explained, is meant to “provide a safe haven for others who don’t want to be surrounded in a room resembling a soft-core-porn set.” But it is also savvy business: With six tables, two counters and bar seating, Canon would “literally lose thousands” of dollars, he said, if it encouraged the kind of tantric lingering associated with the holiday.
There are even special dinners catering to single diners. The Valentine’s installment of the chef Charlene Luo’s Sichuanese supper club, the Baodega (or, this weekend, “bao-bae-ga”), accepts only solo reservations. No couples. No pre-existing friends. It is not a matchmaking event but, as Ms. Luo explained, “everyone is ideally looking for someone,” which creates, if not romance, then at least camaraderie.
“I just wanted to create a safe space for people, no pressure,” she said. “It’s not that serious.” Still, she has secret ambitions. “It is my dream to someday be invited to a Baodega wedding.”
Not all Valentine’s Day counterprogramming is targeted exclusively, or even primarily, at the uncoupled. Everybody, of any relationship status, can rebel against the tyranny of tradition at the Laundromat, a San Francisco pizza and wine bar. On Valentine’s Day it will offer live airbrushing and a balloon artist, in addition to a D.J.; it could be the setting for a date, but it’s intended as a broader celebration of love in all its permutations.
