Good Morning and Hello Friday!

Wild week. I’ve never seen the city quite as bustling. From nail salons jam-packed at 8 pm on a Sunday night (#8 below) to restaurants and bars overflowing with patrons. This applies to all the major cities I’m tracking around the country, e.g., LA, Miami, Nashville, Las Vegas, Asheville, etc.

Also surprised (and happy) to see our mayor – after 8 years in office – finally do something positive for the city: mandate vaccines! Although I do believe he may have ulterior motives, i.e., run for governor. God help us all should he succeed!

1. [WATCH] Video: This week’s lowdown

2. Outdoor Dining: Goes From Beautiful to shabby in a nanosecond

Restaurants have gone above and beyond when it comes to outdoor dining. But after a year, it’s increasingly difficult to maintain order on the streets

1. Graffiti and vandalism are rampant
2. Protestors, along with the homeless and mentally ill, frequently harass diners and trash the dining set-ups.
3. Fires. A well-known sommelier was recently arrested for setting outdoor huts on fire including Prince St. Pizza and Forsythia on Stanton Street!

Bottom Line: While NYers have taken a real shine to dining al fresco (I certainly have!), too many restaurants are starting to resemble shantytowns. I foresee more restaurants looking for spaces with private gardens and protected outdoor facilities (also hiring more private security). My prediction: outdoor dining that did NOT exist pre-pandemic, will largely be gone by the end of the year.

3. Middle Eastern Restaurants are super hot!

Examples:

1. Fabulous dinner at IRIS in Midtown. This newish restaurant comes from prolific chef, John Fraser (previously at Narcissa and Nix) and now also head of F&B at The Public. Highly recommend. Today (Friday) I am checking out another Middle Eastern newcomer, Shukette.
2. Pittsburgh is in the process of getting its first The Halal Guys restaurant (“the Chipotle of Middle Eastern food“). The Halal Guys have been franchising since 2014 and now have 94 locations and over 400+ new restaurants in development worldwide. (Source: WPXI)
3. In Salt Lake City, kunafa, the famous Middle Eastern dessert, is the most popular item on the catering menu at Aziza SLC. It’s made with shredded phyllo dough, filled with custard and cheese and drizzled with orange blossom syrup. Locals can’t get enough of it. (Source: SlugMag)

Per IFT Food Technology Magazine, American’s shift to plant-based diets is driving the interest in Middle Eastern cuisine. In fact, hummus is now the third most common dip on menus, after guacamole and salsa, according to Datassential’s MenuTrends.

“Hummus is up 17% on menus in the past four years; falafel is up 27%, and shakshuka (eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, olive oil, peppers, onion, and garlic, commonly spiced with cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg) is up a whopping 119%.”

Mike Kostyo, Datassential Trendologist (December 1, 2020)

4. CAULILINI: THE Newest VEGETABLE On Restaurant Menus

1. This vegetable was introduced in July 2018 – but ONLY to the foodservice industry. It’s recently been made available year-round to the general public (per the Mann’s website).
2. I’ve started to see it popping up on a few restaurant menus (but not many), e.g., it was on the IRIS menu.
3. Finally, if Taste of Home is correct, caulilini is on the same trajectory as the 20-year success story of broccolini (and the megawatt popularity of everything cauliflower)!

5. San Juan Capistrano’s “Hearth” Summer Dinner Series

1. The Ecology Center is a 28-acre working organic agricultural patch set in the heart of San Juan Capistrano in Orange County. The land doubles as a farm stand, education center, and dinnertime destination thanks to a new series of chef-in-residence dinners by Texan Tim Byres, who won a James Beard Foundation award in 2014 for his Dallas restaurant Smoke.
2. Byres built a vertical grill station at The Ecology Center for the weekend ticketed dinners, turning out slow-smoked vegetables, piping-hot queso in stone vessels, and seared fish and rabbit sausages over the course of a single evening.
3. The open-fire-cooked dinners include a walk through (and discussion of) the farm itself, along with nods to the ancestral Indigenous ties to the place, and a look forward at the group’s growing mission to feed children organic and locally-grown food, and to increase awareness and connectivity to the land. (Source: EaterLA)

I’m particularly enamored of these farm dinners because they remind me of gaucho BBQs during my time in Patagonia. Link to post here (#5 in the blog).

6. Is this the Coolest Job Ever? Spaceport Mixologist

1. Not sure if this is legit but it showed up on enough blogs, e.g., The Verge, for me to believe it is.
2. Candidates are required to whip up space-themed Tiki drinks (???) and will most likely work out of the small house next to SpaceX’s spaceport in Boca Chica Texas that Musk calls the Starbase Tiki Bar.
3. Also at SpaceX’s site is a restaurant and another bar in one of the company’s rocket-building towers that overlooks the whole spaceport. Musk calls that bar “High Bar” and has described it as a “futuristic bar” with “360 degree windows & a glass floor looking down on the rocket factory.” SpaceX hosted a party at the High Bar in June (perhaps for Musk’s birthday 6/28?).

7. Trendspotting: Tastemakers and their dogs!

• Also ran into the legendary Marja Samsom (above) outside of my building.
• She is one of the true pioneers of the LES who I’ve known for a very long time – even before she launched The Kitchen Club Restaurant on Prince St in 1989 (now the Little Cupcake Bakeshop). Check out Marja’s website and attend one of her Miss Behave performances!

8. Nail Salon BIZ IS booming

1. What is going on? Photo above was from last Sunday night at 8pm. Every chair is booked!!
2. Acrylic nails are not new but EVERYONE is now getting them – and they’re way more over-the-top than previously.
3. I saw my friend Amanda Dolan’s post an Instagram recently with her multi-colored summery nails. Amanda opted for a nail shape called “stiletto.” She has them done near her store at Yosei’s Nails (a Japanese salon). She also filled me in on the appeal: “it’s almost like picking out an outfit.”

Bottom Line. Everyone is in some sort of post-pandemic beautification mode. For some, it’s nails (for me it’s a pedicure and botox). Speaking of which, George Hahn noted how incredibly busy the dermatologist he works for is this summer. According to George, summer is not usually peak season for derm visits but THIS year is markedly different!! I agree and believe it is fueled (for some of us at least) by a fervor to look our best as we put Zoom-Life behind us and head back out into the real world.

9. Compact Urban Living: Asheville Edition

Specifically For young professionals and service industry workers wanting to live “downtown” at a reasonable price

1. Bravo to Asheville and the developer David Moritz, of Asheville-based Mori Blue Holdings for dreaming up this much-needed solution to a major problem. (Source: Citizen Times)
2. Plans on file show 80 apartment units in a new five-story building. Each micro-apartment will be about 200 square feet, including bathroom, with communal lounges and kitchens on each floor. Each apartment can house two people, will have a mini-fridge, microwave and sink alongside their bathrooms.
3. It’s a way to address a lack of reasonably-priced housing for people who have recently moved to the area or residents working in the service industry who want to live downtown.

This is a big deal: Micro-Units and denser housing is the future. Density, while it is a compromise for some, is better than all those hair-brained schemes calling for sprawling “tiny house developments” or expanded suburbia. If we are indeed serious about affordable housing and doing good for the environment, this is the way to go.

10. Retail highlights from the 2021 NRF/Kantar annual report.

Highlights:

1. Wine.com topped the list with 99.4% U.S. sales growth.
2. Tractor Supply Co. (No. 12, at 26.8% growth) gets half of its sales from pet and animal categories. What’s especially interesting is they are not solely focused on cats and dogs. Horses are big for them (ownership of which apparently went up last year?). Tractor Supply is also a top home, garden, and outdoors resource. Their motto: ‘For Life Out Here.’
3. E-commerce was, of course, the big winner but get ready to say goodbye to FREE home delivery. It’s killing retailer profitability. Amazon came in at seventh place with 33.7% U.S. sales growth. (Source: NRF.com – EXCELLENT REPORT)

And that’s a wrap – but, as always, there’s just one more thing.

In this case, a shout-out to this fun couple who I ran into on the subway on Tuesday. They were on their way to Yankees stadium. I’m sure they were elated when their BRX BMRS demolished the Orioles. GO YNKES. ⚾️🙌⚾️

And that’s it for this week. Have a great weekend, my friends! I have a quiet-ish week ahead before I get into full-on LEO PARTY mode. 🎉🎉🎉