Jackson Heights Life

Quite the upset happening in today's UK election.

What was supposed to be a romp for the Conservstive party is turning into a major pushback from Labour.

Results are still early (the accuracy of the exit poll is now in question, and it's 2 am in the UK), but it looks like the Conservatives are in big trouble and that the Prime Minister won't have her job much longer. She called the election in the first place because the Labour leader was perceived as a hopeless old style socialist.

Good coverage on BBC1, if one has it, OK coverage via Sky News (on YouTube) and a live blog at the Guardian. Don't know if the NY Times is running a live blog.

Those who work in Manhattan may know that two years ago David Chang and his backers started a restaurant/food service that worked exclusively by delivery.

On the surface, it looked very successful. But two days ago I received a press release via e-mail saying that it was closing down effective immediately, presumably because it was bleeding money.

The press release contained the statement that two of the key people were moving to Deliveroo, a food service delivery company in London that is controversial for its treatment of its bicycle couriers. Not sure why the e-mail would refer to Deliveroo, because very few New Yorkers would have any idea what it is. Maybe included to make certain principals look like it wasn't a complete failure, and to appeal to the NYC food press.

Meanwhile, the online food order companies are charging restaurants about 12% of the order value to pass on the order. This is in addition to the 3% that Visa charges to process the transaction. Then add the tip for the person who makes the delivery.

Just curious to know what people think of this, and whether they know that when they use one of the online order services the restaurant pays about 12% to receive the order plus 3% to receive payment plus what it costs, at minimum wage (currently $10.50/hr in NYC), to deliver the order.

Cheers

I want to reply publicly to the many people who have asked where we're at.

Recently, New York City adopted a bylaw that says that if one tenant of a building has a Department of Buildings violation, no other tenant can get a building permit.

In our case, there are other premises in our building that have violations. Apparently, they are mostly about signage, and in at least one case go back to 1999.

The result is that we have been unable to get a permit since January to continue renovations.

Previous to this, our building permit was suspended for several months because a NYC Building Inspector cited us for making cosmetic changes to our space, citations that were thrown out in October, in their entirety, by the tribunal that deals with alleged violations.

My law firm tells me that I may get a building permit next week, at of course considerable cost, to continue working despite the City's position to this minute that we should be closed down because of violations by others over which we have no control.

I don't know what to say. First, a Building Inspector dragged us through the court system over making completely legal cosmetic changes to our space, and now we have been refused a building permit since January because other people have violations, and apparently the Department of Buildings is talking about minor sign violations that go back to 1999.

My lawyer tells me that we may get a building permit next week that gets around this craziness.

I just want to open, preferably before the City of New York forces me into bankruptcy.

Stew

Hi,

I've just started a renovation of a restaurant and would like to do a time lapse recording from now until the end of the renovation, which will take a couple of months.

I'm thinking a GoPro Hero4 on the ground that its wide angle lens might work well with our narrow space.

Or are there better ways to do this?

Cheers,

Stew

A couple of days ago I learned that a Jackson Heights resident, Jackie Mills, has a new cookbook coming out Tuesday. While aimed at diabetics, it looks like it will have good general advice, and recipes, for healthy eating.

The book is called Power Foods for Diabetes and is available for pre-order on Amazon and elsewhere: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0848744535/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1443312315&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=cooking+light+power+diabetes&dpPl=1&dpID=613V1ai-WCL&ref=plSrch

I've never met Ms. Mills, but I'm in the process of menu planning for my upcoming restaurant and I've decided to order a copy. I think it will be helpful.

Ms. Mills's website: http://www.jackiemills.com.

And what are the most popular Spanish language media here?

Thanks

I have to decide whether Swim Two Birds should use Open Table to book reservations.

As you may know, Open Table charges a monthly fee plus $1 per guest booked through its site and 25 cents booked through our restaurant's site.

This adds up to a great deal of money over a year and the cost is passed on to guests. It also results in restaurants showing, on Open Table, that their restaurant is fully booked, when it isn't, to avoid paying Open Table's $1 per person fee.

So a couple of questions...

What would be your reaction if we used reservation software that didn't involve a per diner fee?

What is your view of Yelp generally and in particular of its reservation software SeatMe?

For background, Open Table has about 1740 restaurants in Manhattan, 178 in Brooklyn, 90 in Queens and five in Jackson Heights.

Thanks,

Stew

We have decided that Swim Two Birds will be the name of the restaurant opening on 37th Avenue between 75th and 76th streets this fall.

People who are interested in following the restaurant's progress from now until opening are invited to follow our new Twitter account at https://twitter.com/swimtwobirdsny  (@SwimTwoBiirdsNY).

We have also opened Facebook and Instagram accounts and will be posting those links tomorrow.

One of the major issues for guests is comfortable seating. I'm excited to say that tomorrow morning I'll be paying a visit to Artistic Frame's New York office to confirm an order for custom chairs for our restaurant. You can see Artistic Frame's work at http://artisticframe.com/browse/showcases.asp?showcaseid=2