The Rules

The rules are relatively simple: all food or drink consumed within the next three weeks must be procured from a restaurant. However, as we geared up for this experiment, we realized that there were still a couple of kinks to iron out. For instance, what is a restaurant?


Dictionary.com defines a restaurant as "an establishment where meals are served to customers", http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/restaurant. So, this will include fast-food restaurants, fast-casual restaurants, full- and limited-service restaurants, ice cream shops, coffee shops, and the like.


What won't be included? We mulled this one over for a while as we thought about some of the "almost-restaurants". For instance, Papa Murphy's, home of the take and bake pizza, http://www.papamurphys.com/WhatIsTakeNBake, is not included. For our purposes, a restaurant must prepare or provide food that is ready to eat when served. While I suppose you COULD take a bite out of their pizza once they pass it over the counter to you, I wouldn't recommend it.


Food does not have to prepared on the premises - a pre-packaged bag of Doritos or bottle of soda is fine. The key here is that it must be bought from an establishment that fits into the categories of approved restaurants.  Stopping at BP and buying a bag of chips is not allowed since the main purpose of BP is to be a gas station/convenience store NOT a restaurant. 


Eating leftovers - from a previously visited restaurant - is fine, and will likely be essential with our somewhat chaotic schedules. 


Adding condiments from home is not allowed.


What do you think? Are there any issues we're overlooking? Any rules that should also be included? 

UPDATE: I realized there was a key exception I overlooked. Water. Bottled water is the only planned exception.