A note to NY landlords. Good restaurants are closing all over the city because the rents are impossible to pay. Stop turning NYC into a mall
— Bobby Flay (@bflay) June 18, 2014H/T Crazy Eddie
A note to NY landlords. Good restaurants are closing all over the city because the rents are impossible to pay. Stop turning NYC into a mall
— Bobby Flay (@bflay) June 18, 2014
17 comments:
Too little, too late, Bobby.
Landlords won't change until the real estate market flattens or crashes. A complex array of forces make that unlikely in the near future barring a dirty bomb or some such event. Meanwhile city government won't do anything to help because the real estate industry has every last one of the politicians and officials in its pockets.
I wish Bobby would say this on one or more of his dozen TV shows. Unfortunately the city will spilt between hideous chain restaurants to feed the tourist from middle America and expensive foodie restaurants feeding the rich.
Ditto to what Anonymous 12:02 said.
@Bobby
The landlords have been terrorizing residents on the Lower East Side to the point of coughing up blood and forcing people to leave. The onslaught of restaurants hopping on the the trend of our once diverse and vibrant neighborhood has equally contributed to our death.
Every month dozens of highfalutin restauranteurs try to secure their spot in an area that is beyond saturated with restaurants and nightlife. Every month residents fight to not have another restaurant open and we keep hearing the same story which is drop dead residents-this is my dream- my town- my park- you will get what you need which is another high end restaurant with wrap around sidewalk seating, accordion doors, killer expensive cocktails, backyard dining and lousy music.
Tell your friends to back off.
It's the restauranteurs and your high end celebrity patrons that are destroying our neighborhood.
Wish Bobby would "Throwdown" with some actual landlords. POW!
Too little, too late?
Good for bobby Flay for putting it out there. It's a good start. Maybe small business owners all over the city ought to start complaining about it too. On social media and to the elected officials in the districts where they run their businesses.
The problem is there are too many restaurants. I don't think restaurants even count on repeat business anymore. Too many good choices for people to spend their hard earned disposable income on to warrant returning to the same place more than once.
I mean if the restauranteurs or anyone else were in the landlord business, they would be trying to get every dime they were entitled to also. It's just the way this city works.
The landlords specifically seek out restaurants only. Take launderette on 2nd Ave. as recent. Like we really need another resteurant on 2nd Ave. I have no pity for the restauranteurs. They force themselves on the community against residents begging them to not do it. The rents have skyrocketed because of them. The food is way overpriced attracting the nuovo riche and tourists and ailienating the hard working locals(whoever is left). They pitch themselves as helping communities as they are not a chain. They have capitalized off of the Bloombergian Gatsbyesque gentrification and now after all the destruction they are crying. Tell me when you were laughing all the way to the bank did you ever once think that you might be a shallow asshole.......
I bet that the LL's will blame their property taxes.
The high property taxes are needed to pay for the increased services, lower crime, abatements for new stadiums, higher teacher salaries, river front amenities, and the list goes on.
We can either have a run-down city that is cheap to live in or a luxury city that costs everyone more, but I don't see where we can have nice things and pay less for them.
Personally, I'd rather do with less, but I know I'm in the minority.
Dear Bobby Flay,
If you hate malls so much why do you have a dozen of your gourmet burger joints in a dozen malls and, worse, casinos around the country? After years of milking the celebrity chef trend for fame and fortune and helping drive up rents, now you want rent control? For restaurants only, or for every kind of retail? Because the last thing we need is more overpriced, high-fat and calorie burger joints pretending to serve gourmet food with six hour long lines, or catering to tourists at the expense of local residents. You started your career in the East Village but have obviously forgotten what it means to be a real New Yorker. That's too bad for you, now please don't bring any of your overpriced places to this neighborhood or we will tell all the Crusties where to go hang out to harass your tourist/foodie/glutton customers.
Flay doesn't care. He is only saying this because he wants to be able to afford the rent too and have chain of Flay restaurants. He can't afford to compete with Bouloud, McNally, Camrellini, and the Torrisi Brothers. He'd be no different than those guys, who would retain the signature look and feel of a NYC staple, while maintaining its authenticity.
Ugh sorry but I just need to point out...
Shake Shack is Danny Meyer, not Bobby Flay.
The word is "restaurateur" - no N.
Otherwise love the comments! Hehheh.
Bobby Flay has his own Shake Shack knockoff with 18 locations, in malls called Bobby's Burger Palace. It started eight years after Danny Meyer struck gold with Shake Shack so you can decide if its a knockoff or not. He's all over the malls which are dying now that JC Penney, Sears and Kmart are closing down many of their anchor stores across the country. I bet he's just looking for cheaper locations in the City since his burger joints are only on Long Island in this area. Can you say self-serving?
http://www.bobbysburgerpalace.com
Geez Giovanni, take it easy. He's in the restaurant biz, so he's coming from the POV of a restaurant owner. If he was a celebrity hardware store owner, maybe he'd be tweeting about how many of his friends in the hardware biz are leaving NYC because their rents are too high. At least he's using his high profile to get it out there.
And so what if he opens burger joints in malls and so what if his tweet is self serving. I don't like sky high residential rents either and I'd like to keep the rent for my apartment reasonable too and so I support rent regulation. That's self serving too. If tenants and small biz owners in this city really got together and self-servingly started screaming bloody murder about our too high res and comm rents, something might actually get done.
To Scuba Diva
Too little, too late, meaning I wish he had said something a few years ago. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
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