The other day , freelance food editor for NYT, posted this screenshot on Instagram seemingly a text thread between his fellow colleague Tanya Sichynsky. Highlighting a trend that I think deserves commentary…but before we go too far in defending finance guys let me rewind.
The other day I shared a drink at Bar Pisellino with a friend of mine. Ninety percent of our attention was focused on a 30-year-old (boy) sporting a Winged Foot Q-zip on what appears to have been a second date from hell. This poor girl sat through drinks where this guy ogled every woman in the room, made remarks about his wealth, alluded to other dates, and then made a weird joke with the waitress about trying to pay with his OMNY card. The date didn’t laugh. The waitress did — one of them works for tips.
Let me be very clear: I am not here to defend that guy, but I do think guys who have done well in New York and enjoy going out to dinner is a group that the restaurant industry tends to ostracize and to be blunt one that they depend on.
It also probably worth noting that personally I would say I fit the stereotype of bro on surface level. I grew up in Connecticut, my grandparents paid for my education, and if that weren’t enough I played lacrosse for three years in high school. (Gasp). Under the surface perhaps there’s more complexity, but that’s a story for my shrink.
For the time being, let’s operate under the understanding that my three years of high school lacrosse and seven years in a suit and tie working in commercial real estate make me aptly appropriate to comment on, and perhaps defend, the poor souls.
The facts are it’s never been more difficult to run a restaurant, and even more so to run a profitable restaurant. Despite the case, I’ve sat through countless meetings with owners and operators seeking to avoid anything that attracts “finance bros” as if they carried the plague.
As Oscar Wilde famously said, “When bankers get together for dinner, they talk about art. When artists get together, they talk about money.”
This is a model that has held true in New York hospitality for years and in the past generally accepted as a necessary evil — artists start a place, make it cool, finance guys find it and pay outrageous prices for entry. The place exists in this flux for about a year until the objectively cooler artists get sick of guys in sports coats hitting on, and on occasion wooing, their girl. The cord snaps and it’s on to the next warehouse to start the cycle all over again.
Historically this practice was just the cost of doing business. At the end of the day restaurants are businesses that exist for no other purpose than to make money.
But something’s changed. Nowadays the justified frustrations typically reserved for the back of the house, or over a beer after the shift, have crept forward into the dining room and the food media “cool kids” on Substack. The same guys who wield corporate cards capable of spending twenty thousand dollars in the blink of an eye, or the young man who will spend $450 at Via Carota in an attempt to woo the gal who is out of his league, are treated like lepers.
Now I will acknowledge there is something to be said for staying cool as good business. Graydon Carter, former editor of Vogue and owner of the Waverly Inn, famously instructed his host to screen any 203 area code to avoid Greenwich hedge fund managers. As someone whose area code, for better or worse, is 302 backwards and who knows plenty of douchebags from Greenwich, I can’t say I blame him. The Waverly Inn has been around for twenty years.
Those who are rude to staff or their date have no place in any restaurant, regardless of spending power.
However, what I will say is ruling out the entire species is equally bad business, and in the West Village or New York at large, it’s probably delusional.
Like it or not, your business relies on these guys. If you’re looking to start a restaurant that doesn’t, I’m told there’s a great deal of vacancy in Ohio. But if you’re here to make money in New York the most competitive hospitality industry in the word, swipe the American Express and thank the local bro for coming in.
