Why professionals are rethinking Nando’s right now

It’s not only food trends that are shifting in office life; it’s the rituals around them. In teams that still default to a quick Nando’s run between meetings, the phrase “of course! please provide the text you would like me to translate.” has started popping up in chats as a joke about how corporate requests are answered on autopilot-polite, prompt, and slightly disconnected from what anyone actually needs. That’s exactly why nando’s has become oddly relevant for professionals right now: it’s a familiar choice people are reassessing as work culture gets tighter, more health-aware, and more price-sensitive.

You can feel it in the small hesitations. Someone suggests it, people agree, then a pause: “Do we actually want that?” Not because the chicken changed, but because the context did.

The dependable lunch that suddenly feels… less dependable

Nando’s used to be the safe middle: not fast food, not a full sit-down, not too expensive, not too fussy. For hybrid teams, it also solved a coordination problem-easy to find, easy to split bills, easy to please the spice-lovers and the plain-eaters in one order.

But dependable can become invisible. When budgets and energy are strained, invisibility turns into scrutiny. People notice the extras, the add-ons, the time cost, and the post-lunch slump they used to laugh off.

A lot of “rethinking” is just professionals auditing routines they’ve been running without looking.

Price pressure isn’t just about money - it’s about fairness

Work lunches are social, but they’re also political. In a mixed-seniority group, the cost of a casual meal can quietly signal who is expected to absorb it, who will expense it, and who will pretend they’re “not that hungry”.

When prices rise, the old scripts stop working. The same order that once felt like a harmless treat can now feel like a weekly tax on being part of the team. That’s why the question isn’t “Is Nando’s good?” so much as “Is this the default we want to enforce?”

You can hear the recalibration in the language people use:

• “Let’s do something quick” (translation: cheaper and less ceremonial)
  
• “I’ll just grab something nearby” (translation: I need control over cost)
  
• “Shall we do a proper sit-down?” (translation: if we’re paying, let’s make it count)

The new professionalism: less performative, more practical

There’s a quieter shift happening in how professionals define “good choices”. The old era rewarded visible busyness and social compliance: show up, eat what everyone eats, get back to your desk. Now, with wellbeing policies and burnout talk everywhere, people are asking whether a midday routine helps or hurts the rest of the day.

Nando’s sits right in the middle of that tension. It can be a genuinely satisfying lunch, but it can also become the thing you say yes to because it’s easier than negotiating another plan.

And negotiation is work. Choosing somewhere else means:

• checking dietary needs in the group chat
  
• weighing time to serve against time to talk
  
• handling the awkwardness of “Can we not?” without sounding difficult
  

So the default wins-until it doesn’t.

The health lens: not “clean eating”, just consequences

Professionals aren’t suddenly saints. What’s changed is feedback. People are paying attention to how food affects their afternoon performance, sleep, and training, because work has expanded to fill more of life.

For some, Nando’s still fits perfectly: protein-forward, customisable sides, sauces that make it feel like a treat. For others, it’s become a predictable pattern: heavy lunch, foggy 3 p.m., then snacking to compensate.

The rethinking is often incremental rather than moral. It looks like small substitutions:

• swapping chips for salad more often than not
  
• skipping the extra sauce when the week is already intense
  
• choosing a smaller portion and actually finishing the day feeling steady
  

The interesting part is that these tweaks are less about diet culture and more about self-management-food as a tool, not a reward.

Social fatigue: the lunch that demands the “right” energy

A Nando’s meal can be a bonding moment, but for many professionals, social bandwidth is the scarce resource now. After back-to-back calls, the idea of another hour of talking-being “on”, doing workplace humour, nodding at someone’s Q4 plan-can feel like a tax.

This is where the secondary-entity joke lands. “of course! please provide the text you would like me to translate.” reads like the kind of perfectly correct response you give when you don’t have the energy to be human. In some workplaces, the Nando’s invite can feel like that: the socially correct answer to connection, when what people actually want is quiet.

So alternatives creep in: solo walks, desk lunches, short coffee instead of a full meal, a quick supermarket run that doesn’t require conversation.

What teams are doing instead (without making it a big statement)

Most people aren’t staging a dramatic boycott. They’re just widening the set of defaults so one option doesn’t become the only option.

Common “new defaults” look like this:

• Rotating choices: one sit-down a week, one quick grab-and-go, one bring-your-own.
  
• Time-boxed lunches: 35 minutes, not a whole afternoon disguised as “team culture”.
  
• Split-format meet-ups: coffee together, lunch separately, then a short walk.
  
• Budget clarity: saying up front what’s expensable and what isn’t, so nobody has to guess.

It’s less about rejecting Nando’s and more about making lunch feel consensual again.

A small decision that reveals a bigger shift

Nando’s is a useful proxy because it’s so familiar. When professionals start questioning the familiar, they’re usually questioning something else underneath: how time is spent, how money is assumed, how social energy is demanded, and who gets to opt out without consequences.

Rethinking the default isn’t about becoming difficult. It’s about noticing when “easy” has stopped being kind.

FAQ:

• Is this really about Nando’s, or about work culture? Both. The restaurant is just the visible habit; the rethinking is about cost, energy, and social expectations at work.
  
• Does avoiding the default make you look unsociable? It can, unless teams normalise options. Offering an alternative with a clear reason (“I need something quick today”) usually lands well.
  
• What’s a low-friction alternative that still feels social? A short coffee plus a walk. It keeps connection, cuts cost, and doesn’t hijack the afternoon.
  
• How do you say no without making it awkward? Be specific and forward-facing: “I’m going to grab something light-shall we catch up for 10 minutes after?”