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Aquarius- your opinion matters just as much as anyone else's. I think that may be part of it... the shrinking of the middle class. In fact, I'm willing to bet on it. I know I don't eat as many meals out as I used to and I'm still what you'd consider solidly middle class. I used to eat out more than I ate in. Now when I do eat out, I usually eat at inexpensive Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese places where I can get enough for several leftover meals cheaply. Nice restaurants are more of a rarity, I only go out for a really nice meal a few times a month and when I do it's generally something too time consuming or difficult to make on my own. My income hasn't changed. For me personally, it's more anxiety than anything else. Luxuries are always where you cut first. Hard to justify a $15 glass of wine and $40 steak when there's a butcher and a wine shoppe next door and you can get the same exact thing for a third or fourth the cost. Or when for the same amount I can have leftovers of Lo Mein, Mo Shu and Moo Goo Gai Pan and not have to grocery shop for an entire week. Not to mention places like Amazon Fresh, Peapod, and Blue Apron constantly running deals where you get a ton of food without ever setting foot in a store or restaurant, relatively cheaply where you know exactly what is going into your meal.
Last edited by EastBoundandDownChick; 04-19-2017 at 08:22 PM..
Don't you ever exhaust yourself being a broken record, Aquarius?
Even in my area not-so-trendy area, where there are a lot of restaurants/bars, plenty of restaurants seem to come and go (as usual), I cringe every time I see another bank (even random ones that I have never seen around before) or pharmacy open up.
I think about a lot of the diners that have closed in the past few years in South Brooklyn and not even in one neighborhood. I believe the one in Sheepshead is being replaced by enormous condos. The one in Kings Plaza was replaced by some CVS/Walgreens/WHATEVER it is. Seems to be a common trend.
This guy just complains everyday ad nauseam. Anyways, I didn't know that there was a diner in Kings Plaza, what was the name and how long ago was this?
There aren't any mom&pop eats anymore, just establishment places and tiny subdivided eateries that seats a dozen. High end places will remain for business clientele. The good thing with high end places is that prices scare most tourists away.
WD-50, Union Square Cafe, Telepan, the Campbell Apartment, the Four Seasons and many others have closed in the past year, usually increasing rents being the main reason but other reasons as well (see article)
I've seen a few talented chefs leave for my hometown of Detroit....
You know things are bad when "talented chefs" start abandoning NYC for Detroit. The only thing worse would be losing one of our baseball teams to Mogadishu.
This guy just complains everyday ad nauseam. Anyways, I didn't know that there was a diner in Kings Plaza, what was the name and how long ago was this?
My mistake---I meant the one across from Kings Plaza that was called Kings Plaza Diner, I believe.
I mainly eat at immigrant owned ethnic restaurants, whether up in Harlem or in the outer boroughs. They aren't really affected. Demographic change is also to take place in Harlem and in most of Queens.
I think the situation needs to be looked at because rents are out of control. We have too many neighborhoods where we see tons of empty store fronts. If the Duane Reade's and other box stores aren't biting or are jumping ship, how is a regular business supposed to be able to thrive and survive? I'm generally all for free markets, but this situation needs to be addressed. We have landlords sitting on empty store fronts receiving tax breaks and refusing to adjust rents to reasonable prices. The article talked about increased rents from around half a million to 3.7 million dollars. I understand that landlords need to make a profit and that they can charge what they want, but the greed is out of control. The only people suffering are the neighborhoods that are losing dining options. Dare I say it, but rents need to be capped in some way or changes need to be made in the tax breaks that landlords receive while their storefronts remain vacant.
I think the situation needs to be looked at because rents are out of control. We have too many neighborhoods where we see tons of empty store fronts. If the Duane Reade's and other box stores aren't biting or are jumping ship, how is a regular business supposed to be able to thrive and survive? I'm generally all for free markets, but this situation needs to be addressed. We have landlords sitting on empty store fronts receiving tax breaks and refusing to adjust rents to reasonable prices. The article talked about increased rents from around half a million to 3.7 million dollars. I understand that landlords need to make a profit and that they can charge what they want, but the greed is out of control. The only people suffering are the neighborhoods that are losing dining options. Dare I say it, but rents need to be capped in some way or changes need to be made in the tax breaks that landlords receive while their storefronts remain vacant.
Small businesses in those neighborhoods could have organized to stop this, but they were too busy blowing the likes of Guiliani and Bloomberg. With that said let the marketplace sort it out. If landlords have empty buildings that were hangouts for homeless and vermin, then I would say something should be done. But an empty but well maintained storefront should not be forcibly rented out. The landlords clearly prefer to hold out till they get the tenants they want.
I think the other issue is as some storefronts are small, it's in the landlords best interest not to rent it out and sell to a developer who will rid the space apartment and make much bigger retail space for a store. Some storefronts are too small to attract quality businesses.
The marketplace cannot "sort it out" if the marketplace is contaminated ( skewed ) by tax incentives to keep places vacant.The same holds in the residential market. Landlords should not be encouraged to leave spaces (residential or commercial) empty by being able to write off the lost rent as a business loss. If this one form of welfare were eliminated both commercial and residential rents would probably go down.
Nobody should force landlords to rent anything but they should suffer normal consequences for not doing so instead of being rewarded.
The real estate industry will never allow this welfare to be taken away so no point getting too worked up about it.
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