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Posted May 29, 2019, 9:29 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Toronto
Posts: 52,200
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New York’s Vanishing Diners
New York’s Vanishing Diners
May 24, 2019
By Stefanos Chen
Read More: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/24/r...ng-diners.html
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While their disappearance has been lamented for years, diners along the margins of Manhattan and in parts of other boroughs previously thought impervious to redevelopment are closing because of increasing rents and enticing offers that are hard to pass up.
- Still, the diner’s imprint on New York culture can be felt among the holdouts, the mourners of the recently shuttered and the restaurant owners who find life after the death of their diners. Since 2014, 15 diners, many in stand-alone buildings, have been sold in New York, according to an analysis by Ariel Property Advisors, a commercial real estate brokerage. — There were six sales in Queens, six in Brooklyn, two in the Bronx and one in Staten Island. There were no sales in Manhattan. But that does not account for the diners whose owners lost their leases.
- Riley Arthur, a photographer who has visited nearly every diner in the five boroughs, estimated that there are 419 left in New York City. In the three years since Ms. Arthur began photographing them for her Instagram page, 39 have closed an average of 13 a year. — In many cases, they didn’t close because of dwindling customers. “It’s just the other factors” like rising rents and shrinking profit margins that “are insurmountable,” she said. “You just can’t make up that difference selling eggs.”
- Others are operating on borrowed time. The Neptune Diner in Astoria, Queens, which sits on a 100-by-90-foot lot, was sold in October for $10.35 million. While the diner, with its Mediterranean tile roof and neon sign, occupies a fraction of the lot, a developer could build more than 44,000 square feet on the property, thanks to unused development rights, enough for a six-story apartment building with commercial space on the ground, said Michael A. Tortorici, an executive vice president at Ariel Property Advisors.
- Nick Tsoromokos, a partner at the law firm Tsoromokos & Papadopoulos, who represented the buyers, said the diner’s lease will expire at the end of August, but might be extended on a monthly basis. A manager at the diner said they expect to stay in business for four more years, but Mr. Tsoromokos said that was unlikely. — “The diner is a 747,” said Paul Fetscher, an agent with Coldwell Banker Commercial NRT, who specializes in restaurant sales. “It needs tremendous velocity to continue to make money,” he added, noting that many are open 24 hours a day.
- He attributed part of the pressure to rising taxes and to the $15 minimum wage law in New York that cuts into owners’ margins. And as many owners are nearing retirement age, he expects the pace of sales to accelerate. — Some are trying to adapt. Bill Tsibidis, 42, an owner of the Crosstown Diner in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx, is often at odds with his father, Peter, who bought the prefab diner on Bruckner Boulevard in 1982. “We were fighting tooth and nail — and he is still stuck in his ways,” Mr. Tsibidis said.
- His father, who is from Sparta, Greece, was opposed to taking delivery orders, because he thought it would tarnish the restaurant’s reputation. Now deliveries make up about 40 percent of their business. Recently, Mr. Tsibidis has added other kinds of food to the diner’s Greek-American fare, including pernil, a Puerto Rican roast pork dish, and he is in talks to bring in a sushi chef. He also runs Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts to promote the diner. — “You either change or you’re dead,” Mr. Tsibidis said, noting that one of their competitors, the Pelham Bay Diner, sold in January after 37 years in business.
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