Food End

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Basically, a work ends by showing a relatively light-hearted scene where the hero and his friends decide to go grab a bite to eat. May or may not include a final conversation to wrap up a few loose ends in the plot, but generally just as often the plot ends right at the invitation or decision.

If it's a guy inviting a girl out to dinner (or vice-versa), it can be used to show that their relationship has progressed beyond Just Friends or "merely professional."

Title is a play on the term "Good End" sometimes found in video games. See also Victory Cake.

As an Ending Trope, Spoilers ahead may be unmarked. Beware.


Examples of Food End include:


Anime and Manga

  • The first chapter of Naruto ends with Iruka giving Naruto his headband and thinking that a ninja's life is hard, but he'll tell him over ramen.
  • In One Piece, major arcs often end with a large feast.

Comic Books

Film

Literature

  • Seems to be a bit of a tradition in the Ciaphas Cain books (Though not the short stories). The only one that hasn't used it so far is Cain's Last Stand.
    • In For The Emperor, Cain is invited to dinner by Inquisitor Vail, and she tells him Jurgen's secret.
    • In The Caves Of Ice, Cain reciprocates and treats Amberley to her favorite and himself to a well-deserved ambull steak.
    • In The Traitor's Hand, Cain invites his Valhallan True Companions to dinner to celebrate their victory.
    • In Death Or Glory, after being trapped on an Ork-infested continent with a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, the second thing Cain asks for upon linking up with the main friendly army (after medical supplies) is a Spot of Tea.
    • In Duty Calls, Cain and Vail share a few glasses of amasec on the flight out of the warzone after reacquiring a stolen artifact and dealing with a genestealer mob.
    • The Emperor's Finest continues the tradition by ending with Cain at a private tea party held by a local planetary governor.
    • And again in The Last Ditch, where Cain and Amberley discuss the origins of Numquam Fundamentibus's Tyranid infestation over dinner.
  • The first Hitchhikers Guide book ends with the heroes heading off to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe for a bite.
  • Pretty much every Redwall book ends with the woodlanders heading off to a feast.
  • The A to Z Mysteries book The Falcon's Feathers ends with an ice cream party for the heroes.
  • The ending to How the Grinch Stole Christmas has The Grinch carving the rare roast beast with the Whos. As a side note, most Christmas stories end with a feast.

Live Action TV

  • Happens frequently on Bones - first season a Chinese restaurant run by Heavy D, and after that a local diner or watering hole. In addition, many episodes end with Booth and Bones eating Thai and doing their paperwork.
  • Every once in a while, CSI ends on various members of the team eating in their favorite diner, and the way they interact shows the Character Development they've undergone and the shifts in relationship dynamics.
  • Ditto for Law and Order, though it's generally a bar where Team Dad Jack McCoy is feeling sorry for himself again.
  • The infamous No Ending of The Sopranos.
  • The final episode of Friends ends with the titular group (who are separating due to marriage or career choices) deciding to spend their last hours together in the coffee shop where they all met ten years ago. It becomes a Tear Jerker ending when the camera then pans across the (now-empty) apartment that fans have spent the past decade visiting every week.

Video Games

  • Bad Dudes ends with the rescued president offering to take the heroes out for some burgers.
  • In BlazBlue a couple of Tao's endings and Ragna's joke ending have them eating (Ragna's joke ending naturally involves Tao). Parodied in Noel's Gag Reel in Continuum Shift, in which her cooking renders everyone in the cast except Terumi unconcious.
  • The epilogue of Ghost Trick has a birthday dinner at Jowd's house. With giant roast chickens, of course.
  • The credits in the third game of Mega Man Star Force Shows the entire cast having a party and eating food.
  • Escape From St Marys begins with quest for food, shifts to several layers of crazy and then ends with... food.

Web Original

  • Occurs, of all places, in Survival of the Fittest. In version four a member of STAR mentions that they'd get Happy Meals for each person who'd escaped. One of the post-game threads show that yes, they did indeed get McDonalds'. Given the setting, however, it's more of a Bittersweet Ending at best.

Western Animation

  • Early Scooby Doo episodes tended to wrap up at the "Pizza Palace", or some similar place.
  • ...Well, that was fun! who wants Chinese? (A case of putting The Fun in Funeral.)
  • The Simpsons sketches and early episodes often had Homer taking the family out for "frosty chocolate milkshakes". This resulted in a Call Back in a much later episode when Homer kidnaps some children (it's a long story) after lulling them into complacency by saying they're going out for... you guessed it.