Who will survive?

I had lunch at Little Owl this week. As always, delicious.  I happened to walk by Market Table on the way to lunch.  I am honestly blown away how packed both of these restaurants were for lunch.  I know they are also packed for dinner because it is tough to get a reservation but lunch in the west village...wow!

Since I am on my recession theme there are a few thoughts on this.

My friend, who owns a bunch of restaurants, is still doing quite well.  His places, like Market Table and Little Owl, are really well branded restaurants and they make people feel special that they are eating there.  The atmosphere is warm.  The service is wonderful and you get a really good meal.  As another friend in the restaurant business said to me, New Yorkers eat out and they aren't going to stop eating out.  The question is where, how often and how much are they going to spend every week.

NYC is a public city.  What I mean by that is people don't hang out in their homes.  You even see little kids hanging in their lobbies.  People hang all day at the local coffee bar because it is communal and they are connecting with people. It is an external town vs an internal town.  In cities like Los Angeles, people spend a lot of times in their cars and homes.  The complete opposite of NYC.

The change in the economy will certainly have some winners and some losers in our ever changing town be it art galleries, clothing stores or restaurants.  If I were a betting girl, I'd be putting my money on Little Owl and Market Table to win.  Impressive.