Cherche Midi Closed!!!!???? Bowery.

I guess this is old news but it’s new to me. Argh.

Reading this “obit” reminded me of the saying: Throw everything you got at the wall, and go with what sticks. :unamused:

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We ate there once and I didn’t like it. But that’s not why it closed! A lot of places along the Bowery and elsewhere in Lower Manhattan have closed. I suspect that it has to do with skyrocketing rents. On our recent trip to Manhattan I was surprised at how many empty storefronts we saw.

Yes, that is what I read. I liked Cherche Midi. Thought the place was gorgeous. I’m sad they closed because I planned on trying the prime rib next visit! We live in Northern Westchester so don’t get down often.

When even places like FAO Schwartz and Lord and Taylor have to close their stores because the rent is too high - something is very wrong.

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Agreed. And so sad.

I am wading in late, but can anyone tell the difference between all the Keith McNally restaurants? I have been to several and love Odeon and Balthazar but there’s a certain sameness to them in my experience.

As to rents, my understanding is that commercial rents have not been increasing at the same pace. More the issue that when a lease comes up for renewal and the increase from what the rent was 10-15 years ago is the killer. FAO Schwartz and L&T are different issue. FAO Schwartz was killed off by Toys R Us and internet and as to L&T I can’t tell you the last time I was in there but it felt like the clientele was clearly of a later vintage. Their market I think like other venerable brands was literally dying off. What I am seeing between where I live and where I work is that all the store fronts are being taken up by either banks, drugstores or for some odd reason high end eye glass shops.

I’d say that the increase from what it was even a few years ago is the killer, especially for restaurants. The place starts out, struggles, establishes itself, and at the two year or five year mark the landlord raises the rent to whatever he/she thinks the market will bear - this market rate perhaps even having been enhanced by the presence of a good restaurant in the space.

As for more established joints:

Obviously nobody would expect the rent to remain at $450 a month, but not even a really high-priced restaurant could survive at $33,000 a month.

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Based on what I just read, the owners of the property held it free and clear with no mortgage loan to pay off. Taxes yes. Mortgage, no. So the property owners got wealthy–really, really wealthy from 40 years of lease payments. Wonder if, when they opened their mouths, you would see fangs, instead of teeth.

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Commercial leases don’t generally work that way. A typical term is 10-15 years. There will be built in annual rent increases but the landlord doesn’t come back in year 5 of a 15 year lease and increase the rent. What happens is that the market changes over that term and by the time you come to the end of the term, the market has changed dramatically. That’s what is happening to many businesses. Rents in NYC were very different 10-20 years ago.

The fact that the owner has a mortgage or not doesn’t change what the rent should be. Why should it? If that was the case, you could argue that someone who owned their home should be paid less at work than someone had a mortgage on their house for the same job. The rent is what the rent is supposed to be for the space.

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