Saving the Restaurants of NYC

In 1982, I showed up at the host station at New Haven Restaurant, clutching my resume. I was a Yale student who lost my financial support from my parents and needed a job, fast. I never worked in a restaurant before and since my family didn’t have money had little experience dining in restaurants. But I showed up in a pressed shirt and chinos clutching my paper resume. A woman with kind eyes took my resume and said, “We’re not hiring,” then glanced at it. She got a surprised expression on her face and said, “You’re from Akron?!” I said yes and told her my story. Mary Beth said that she didn’t really have anything but since she and I had Akron in common, she would give me a chance. If I were willing to do any job, I could show up on Tuesday with clothes for bussing and for working in the kitchen. And that’s what I did. I washed dishes, took turns as grill cook, fry cook, line cook, short-order cook, prep cook, garde manger, expediter, busboy, host, waiter, bartender. I learned wine appreciation and mixology. I learned teamwork and customer service. Three years later, I graduated from Yale, thanks to the restaurant industry. Do I need to say that my love of restaurants runs deep? 

60% of restaurants may close before warmer weather comes. It’s far, far more than an economic loss. As my friend Nazli Parvizi and co-author Niki Federman wrote in the New York Daily News:

“Food is culture. And as the backdrop to the most important rituals of our lives, our restaurants and bars define American food culture — its radical pluralism, refusal to adhere to strict tradition, and embrace of influence from others.”

Restaurateurs are savvy business people who know they are also serving emotion, whether it’s comfort, travel, or celebration. To create this magic, they know how to manage variable costs like ingredient prices and uncontrollable issues like the weather. And they can adapt to almost everything. Almost. 

What’s killing restaurants are fixed costs: rent, commercial property tax, water, and utilities. The incremental costs of doing business, barely tolerated in the past, now crush precious operating margins. And there’s no clear light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, it won’t be Federal funding in the form of the RESTAURANTS Act. 

To see my full Small Business policy, click here. But in focusing on restaurants, specifically:

We need to keep restaurants and bars in their stores. City Hall can do more. So much more. 

• Revenues. Street dining is essential for restaurants and bars. I will:

  • Extend street dining at least until the end of, 2022

    • In the meantime, I will appoint a Deputy Mayor of the Public Realm, who will be tasked with exploring how we can make street dining permanent and implementing the 25 by 25 Plan.

  • Convene a citywide effort to redesign our streets with long-term sidewalk occupancy for restaurants, bars, and other retailers 

• Rent. As I laid out in my Housing plan, I will:

  • Extend the eviction moratorium to March 31, 2022

  • Extend the foreclosure moratorium to March 31, 2022

  • Work with the financial services industry to extend mortgages and cancel accrued debt from the moratoria

• Property taxes and other fees. I will:

  • Cancel tax increases and create an easy application process for deferrals, including modification of the 18% payment for late tax payments

• Credit card fees. I will:

  • Work with credit card processors to create relief for all retailers in NYC by lowering fees

  • Create more competition in credit card processing

• Delivery apps. City Council has passed much-needed limitations on delivery fees. I would go further:

  • Work with the NYC tech industry to create an NYC delivery app

• Marketing and promotion. I will:

  • Create a user-friendly online and mobile service to enable all retailers to post their openings and closings

  • Using the City’s promotion and marketing power to celebrate the restaurant industry, in conjunction with established non-profit and industry organizations

• Business assistance. I will:

  • Align and consolidate into a single service the various agencies that regulate restaurants, bars, and retailers

  • Create a volunteer “Innovator Corps” of successful business people and entrepreneurs to provide advice to emerging businesses 

  • Leverage culinary and business schools to support restaurants to speed recovery and strengthen the industry