Closed for Business

I just noticed that Jimmy's Diner, from my old Williamsburg neighborhood, closed down last July, and now the owner's pointing out how difficult it is to not only keep a restaurant open in NYC, but closing one as well:

“Closing a restaurant is not like closing up an office where you, you know, take your laptop with you, lock up the door and, ‘See you in two months’,” Papagni said. “A restaurant is like a living, breathing entity and there's a million different things that you have to do to close it—and that can go wrong when you close it.”

A decision to close means the owners must face their creditors and landlords. And yet the financial and emotional cost of closing a restaurant is a part of the industry that doesn’t get talked about much, said Stephen Zagor, who teaches Food Entrepreneurship at the Columbia Business School and is the former director of the Institute for Culinary Education.

“You'd like to be optimistic that the thing is going to do incredibly well and that your closing will be more of an exit strategy when someone comes in to buy you,” Zagor said.

Of COURSE I want to turn this back to my review of the restaurant I wrote in 2009 before it even opened; I won't make you read the whole thing if you don't want to even though the whole ting is comedy gold, but I will point out the five best bit, you're very welcome:

A fried chicken place (and by “fried chicken place” I mean one of those places that purports to be Southern but is run by someone who thinks The Colonel fought in the Cola Wars of the mid-80s).

My default glance to see how bullshit a restaurant is the cheeseburger with fries. Jimmy’s asking $11 for this. Hmm. $11 to sit just off the BQE in a dining room the size of my nutbag for a burger and fries. No thanks - I can get this UNDER the BQE, and have a boyfriend who has his own shopping cart of aluminum cans to boot. 

This menu’s got more choices than Michael Jackson at a Romper Room remake of Ben Hur.  

A $12 salad? Really? There’s only one salad that’s worth $12 - and, if I’ve studied my Chris Rock correctly, and I think I have, you have to get caught stealing a car to get one. 

A side of baked beans costs $4. Please. Jimmy. Williamsburg hipsters will gladly pay $900 for a used Hold Steady lunch box, but they won’t pay $4 for baked beans. Hipsters don’t like anything that makes them gassy unless it’s the thought of someone finding their 11th grade yearbook and finding out that they DIDN’T actually love Wire or Gang of Four in high school.