"I’d rather go to Hillstone than another wine bar."
The return of clubsteraunts is nigh.
Hello everyone. I visited this photo booth on Orchard last night and I think it’s the most exciting small business in Manhattan. Line down the block, everyone is happy, a bit of magic in the development chemicals, zero staff costs. The young couple who opened the photo booth has been posting about the journey on Instagram, and I have enjoyed watching them face the challenges of such a temperamental machine and overcome them.
I am about to embark on what I’m calling a Wellness Bender. I haven’t bought sneakers since 2021 so I’ll start there. Open to all and any ideas, I’m defining this bender in real time, I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
Today’s letter is about how New Yorkers would rather pay for vibes than food (thanks Ozempic), the one thing that could make me switch to beehiiv, and a documentary about The Sunset Tower. If you need anything or I owe you an email, hit me at emily@readfeedme.com
For our next Guest Lecture, we’ll be having Chris Black drop into class. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to submit questions to them. Later in the week, I’ll publish our guest’s answers.
Chris Black is the co-host How Long Gone, a podcast with a cult-following and a reputation for turning men bicoastal. He’s also a columnist at New York Magazine and GQ. Chris’s agency, Done To Death Projects, works with everyone from J.Crew to Balenciaga. This week, paid Feed Me readers can ask him… anything. I’ll publish his answers later this week!
Clubstaurants are coming back.
Of the ten top largest (by size) leases in New York in August that The Real Deal reported on, five are new restaurants or bars. I tapped Feed Me’s anonymous transit reporter who broke down what this means for today’s letter:
“So on leasing - it’s not reporting record rates (though I imagine they are record rates), it’s reporting record size. I’m not a restaurateur, so maybe get [redacted] or [redacted] or someone’s input, but a lease represents fixed cost. You contract for the payments over the term, you pay the amounts, whether business is booming or nobody’s in your dining room. Splashing out for sizeable space represents, to me, high confidence in the concepts they’re opening succeeding, or at least not failing, on opening. If I were unconfident in my restaurant, I’d lease small spaces for short terms, or go with a pop-up with $0 real estate cost.
Big splash leases to me represent either quiet concessions getting made to get a price down to something workable and fill the buildings or very high confidence in the restaurants themselves. Looking at what was in these addresses before (if anything) and when they were completed/vacant and ready for tenant might provide better context for which it is.”
I texted a few friends who are restaurateurs, and they confirmed people don’t just want restaurants right now in New York — they want fun. One told me, “It’s not so much about having great food, but more about having a comfy experience in a large space. Developers and investors with big money don’t want to take risks, they want to open the next TAO.”