New York restaurants merge the low-margin world of food businesses like grocery stores with taste-predicting industries like Hollywood browse around here.
Source: The Thrill of Losing Money by Investing in a Manhattan Restaurant – The New Yorker
The money quote:
The two decent young men who opened the restaurant remained decent throughout, if numbed by how hard it has been to support their families with a business that has grossed, consistently, two million dollars per year.
This was written by someone who had the money as opposed to the cooks and waitstaff who worked there. Where is their interview? While I’m sure they’ll find to survive in the city the fact remains that they will have to find ways to temporarily cope with their reduced incomes.
As an outsider to the entire scene in NYC, it’s easy to say that if you’re looking to do more than feed elitist economical minorities you need to leave the big cities and head elsewhere.
Came back out of retirement to post this. I still have one or two more things to say, I guess.