Cold Dish

So by now you know that Five has closed its doors permanently. So has Levain. Two foodie institutions gone, but why?

Some people might take this opportunity to wax rhapsodic on the state of the scene, and apply huge, sweeping generalizations about what society is up to, just so that they can be The Expert, the One Who Gets It.

But that bugs me. Because there’s so much more than a quick bite going on here.

To say that people are still eating out but “avoiding the trendy and the tres innovative” and then list a few recent closings is like licking the icing off a cupcake and then denouncing it for having no substance.

In at least four of the five restaurants listed after the above statement, there were some SERIOUS leadership issues that largely contributed to their demise. The people running the restaurant, not the people eating in the restaurant are the ones to blame when it closes. Why can’t people get that through their head?

There are plenty of people in these cities who look for the trendy and the innovative, but yes, you have to actually WORK at making sure they return!

The restaurant business is a cycle, the ones who have a good sense of self (leadership) and an even better sense of the guest (service) are the ones who will survive the dips. The ones who care mostly for their reputations or their personal cash-flow have lost sight of being humble in the eyes of the eater, and thereby successful.