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The Gut-Wrenching Decision To Close
I’ve probably watched You’ve Got Mail a hundred times. The New York City of 1998 is my mental New York, before parts of town were overtaken by big box brands, and those needle-like buildings that soar into the sky.
Along with nostalgia, You’ve Got Mail presents a dilemma familiar to many small business owners: when is it time to close?
In Kathleen Kelly’s case, her children’s bookstore, aptly named The Shop Around The Corner, faces insurmountable competition from Fox Books, a mega store that Joe Fox builds nearby.
The irony is that Amazon and the Web probably also knocked out Fox Books a few years later, although they were only emerging as a factor when Nora Ephron filmed the movie.
Now, restaurants and food places all over the country are facing an agonizing decision. Leases are running out at the end of the year, and cash-strapped landlords are demanding rent hikes. PPP assistance, which helped cover expenses over the past 18 months, has been spent.
Should they fight to stay open, or throw in the kitchen towel?
The owner of one of New Orleans’ best-loved restaurants has decided to give up. Joanne Clevenger, a matriarch of the city’s culinary scene, is not going to re-open Upperline, which has been in business for nearly 40 years. (That’s it, above.)
I always dreamed of living nearby in the Uptown neighborhood and being able to walk to Upperline, which is set in an old house, and which always felt like visiting someone’s brightly decorated home.
Originally, she had every intention of seeing her art-filled restaurant come back to life, once the pandemic subsided. However, her age — 82 — and the challenges poised by the difficult restaurant environment convinced her that it would be too difficult to merge back into industry traffic.
According to the New York Times, the Clevenger family plans to sell the building and are open to selling the business, if they trust that the buyer “will carry on what we built,” she said.
Across New Orleans, a less well-known, but popular restaurant also closed this fall. Kin, on Washington Avenue, opened in 2015 as part of the move to gourmet ramen, elevating Japanese street food to something more innovative.
Chef owner Hieu Than crafted a lively place that felt like a continuous party, more casual than the one thrown at Upperline.
His takes on soup and dumplings were delicious with sometimes unusual flavor combinations, the kind of cuisine you’d expect to find in New York or L.A.
Earlier this year, he tried to withstand Covid’s impact by switching to fried chicken, which everyone tells me was delicious. But, he too, decided this fall that it was time to close.
Decisions happening everywhere
Similar decisions are happening everywhere, from small lunch counters to coffee shops to larger places that have been around for decades.
More than 90,000 bars and restaurants have gone out of business since the beginning of the pandemic, and there are still nearly 900,000 fewer jobs in the industry than in 2019.
While Covid restrictions were a reason many felt they couldn’t continue, the bumpy economy, unreliable supply chain, rent increases and difficulties in hiring were hurdles that simply made business models collapse.
Canadian author Corey Mintz looks at all that in the just-published book, The Next Supper: The End of Restaurants As We Knew Them, And What Comes After.
It’s the first of what are likely to be a number of books looking at the troubles that were already brewing before the pandemic hit.
Fighting to survive
There are people fighting it, however. Restaurant owner Michael Gulotta simply refused to give up on Maypop, his Asian fusion spot in New Orleans’ Central Business District.
He re-opened his own ramen place, MoPho, while he waited for business to improve enough to warrant running two places.
In April, Maypop came back, and as tourism returns to New Orleans (which will hold Mardi Gras in February), the outlook seems promising, if not as bright as it was in the before times.
Manny’s Deli has been part of the Chicago restaurant scene since the 1940s, but seemed on its last legs for a time when the pandemic hit.
Danny Raskin, fourth generation of his family to run the spot just south of the Chicago Loop, kept Manny’s going with a relentless social media appeal, deliveries to the Chicago suburbs, and collaborations with other area restaurants.
For some, a new chapter
Yet, closing also has created opportunities for other chefs. They get the opportunity to offer their services through catering, private dining, special events and to explore media opportunities.
For some people, like chef Jason Goodenough, deciding to close a restaurant means opening a new door on what could be a less stressful, but equally rewarding future.
This week, he donned a fresh chef’s coat that reads, The New Culinarian, marking the launch of a multi-faceted cooking business.
Joanne says that if she were 62, she would fight to keep Upperline open. But at 20 years older, she isn’t up for the battle.
However, I think she might be surprised at where she is a year from now. Since announcing that Upperline is closing, there have been admiring stories about her and New Orleanians have made clear just how much her restaurant meant to them.
With the deaths the past few years of heralded restaurant owners Leah Chase and Ella Brennan, there is easily a chance for her to fill the role as the city’s culinary grande dame.
Why shouldn’t someone take a victory lap, or two? We have a lot to learn from every experienced restaurant person, even if the scene has changed from the way it was when they started. I look forward to seeing how these next chapters play out.
We Now Know The GBBO Finalists
SPOILERS BELOW.
After last week’s elimination, I was looking at the remaining group of contestants on the Great British Bake Off — three male bakers, Giuseppe, Chigs and Jurgen — and a woman, Chrystelle.
It suddenly struck me which baker was going to wind up missing the finals: Jurgen. Turns out that I was right.
Here’s what was behind my logic. GBBO has had single-gender finals in the past, but viewers have spoken up about that, and the producers generally try to mix things up.
GBBO is all about finding marketable winners and finalists, as I’ve said before. It was clear that polished millennial Chrystelle had a lock on a spot, despite what some viewers felt were inconsistent bakes.
That meant one of the three men was going to have to leave. To the outrage of a number of GBBO fans, it was Jurgen, and it had nothing to do with his skill.
The producers’ reasoning
This might be a competition, but the judges and the bosses at Love Productions want winners and finalists who they feel best represent GBBO’s brand. Within the GBBO family, there are holiday programs and other events to cast. Love also wants to create spin off series that can be aired in Britain and sold elsewhere, to Netflix and networks like the CBC.
The bakers themselves get opportunities, too. Martha Collison, the youngest baker on her series, appears regularly on Graham Norton’s radio program. Nadiya Hussein recently scored a fashion endorsement deal with Next, a British high street chain.
You can easily see Chrystelle getting that kind of exposure. The same with Chigs, who has a number of viewers fanning themselves over his hotness. I’m willing to bet that even if he loses, he will pop up again in a Love Productions program.
That left the choice between the remaining non-British born bakers, one Italian, one German. As I’ve mentioned, Giuseppe has gotten ample camera time over the course of the show, a sign producers like him. He got attention early and has kept it.
And so, Jurgen. Even though he won the technical challenge in the latest episode, he was the only baker not to receive a handshake from Paul Hollywood.
Maybe Jurgen’s knuddelig appearance skewed too much on the mature side. Maybe his accent worked against him. Perhaps he was too calm amid the baking frenzy. He often seemed an oasis of zen.
In any event, Jurgen will be on the hillside, real or virtual, while finalists are baking inside the tent.
The winner will be chosen Tuesday night British time, or afternoon East Coast U.S. time. Netflix viewers will see the finale on Black Friday.
Any bets on who will take home the coveted glass cake plate?
Meanwhile, here is a prize for GBBO fans. Our friends at Bake With A Legend are offering a free bake along class next Sunday (Nov. 28). Baker Howard Middleton will lead us in making my favorite British classic, the Victoria sponge. Find details and register here.
Charming illustrations of New York, Paris and London
This is the time of year when many of us ponder ideas for holiday gifts. In 2021, it’s important to order them as early as possible. I wanted to pass along one suggestion for restaurant lovers.
Brooklyn-based illustrator John Donahue is the artist behind All The Restaurants, specializing in drawings of places in New York, Paris and London. New York Magazine critic Adam Platt calls him the “Rembrandt of New York City’s restaurant facades.”
You can spend happy hours leafing through dozens of reasonably priced prints on his site, which range from places like L’Ami Louis in Paris, to the 21 Club in New York, and Frenchie in London.
It’s like time travel for people who dined in those places, and his illustrations would be lovely in a kitchen or next to a cookbook collection.
John launched his project in 2017, and draws something twice a day. This week, Fox Channel 5 in NYC went along while he drew P.J. Clarke’s, the legendary watering hole down the street from my first New York office.
His New York illustrations are collected in a charming book, All The Restaurants In New York. His latest is A Table In Paris which I’m planning to add to my Paris bookshelf.
If you make a purchase now, 10 percent will go to the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation’s Covid-19 Emergency Relief Fund. So, you’ll be helping someone and feeding your artistic soul, too.
Please let John know if you saw his work on the newsletter, and enjoy his lovely prints.
A reminder of our latest book giveaway
Remember that paid subscribers and founding members of the CulinaryWoman Newsletter are eligible for drawings, updates and extras.
Our latest book giveaway is a personally autographed copy of Going into Business with Emma Goldman: 18 Anarchist Lessons for Business and Life, a pamphlet by Ari Weinzweig, the co-founder of Zingerman’s.
Ari can dedicate the inscription to you or the person you designate. We’ll make sure it arrives in time for the holidays.
Please join the CulinaryWoman Community. More giveaways are coming!
Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman
It’s now only three months until Satisfaction Guaranteed is published by Scribner’s. I’m excited to see my calendar start to fill up with events.
The first is scheduled for Publication Day on Feb. 22, hosted by Literati Bookstore here in Ann Arbor.
My interviewer is scheduled to be Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, a long-time admirer of Zingerman’s, who is also our district’s representative.
Zingerman’s is also planning to hold events to launch the book — more news to come about those — and I’m set to appear at libraries, bookstores and as a participant in author programs.
If you’d be interested in hearing about Zingerman’s and having me speak, please contact me at culinarywoman at gmail dot com, or reply to this newsletter.
Feel free to suggest me to your local organizations. They are welcome to get in touch.
I’d be tickled if you would pre-order a copy! If you do, and would like a signed book plate, send me an email and you’ll receive one when the book is published.
You can follow me on Twitter and Tik Tok @culinarywoman and I’m @michelinemaynard on Instagram.
I’m fully recovered from the brief side effects of getting my Covid booster shot. Please get yours as soon as it’s available, and continue to be cautious.
Meanwhile, stay healthy, travel safely, and Happy Thanksgiving!
Note: there will not be a CulinaryWoman Newsletter next Sunday. But, we’ll be back on the Sunday after that.