I have a feeling DW Joy is staying away from the computer today, but will surely enjoy your birthday wishes in the near future.
What I want to know is: Who told BK John’s was the best pizza? I’ve heard nobody say this since around 1979, when it appeared it Woody Allen’s Manhattan, and it was arguable (and argued) then. We like V & T’s, an old-fashioned place with unfriendly waiters in the same building where Gershwin wrote Rhapsody In Blue.
This post from BK got me thinking about tourist traps:
As to that restaurant practice, while I used to run into it occasionally, I haven't for years, and I still think it's stupid. I'm coming to dine and my party will follow shortly, so what's the difference whether they seat me? It makes no sense to me on any level. So, someone who gets there AFTER me gets seated BEFORE me just because they arrive together and one of them isn't off parking or something? Uh uh. The result? John's Pizza can do without my business, and let me tell you, they will find out that I'm not the only one who won't put up with it a second time. I've watched it happen and suddenly, six months later, the restaurant is magically seating people when they arrive, whether their party is complete or not.
John’s can do whatever it wants, without worrying about any repeat business, as long as tourists continue to believe it’s the must-have New York pizza experience. They can mistreat customers, even serve a bad-tasting pie; it doesn’t matter. The tourist, often, isn’t likely to return because there’s no return trip to New York for a long time, after which said mistreatment and bad pie is forgotten.
The Broadway theatre, being the draw it is, necessarily is just about the worst neighborhood for restaurants. With so many people, in New York just for vacation, looking to eat as near to Wicked or Phantom as possible, there’s a lot of restaurants who take their money with no particular motivation to do a good job. The further you get from the theatres, the better the eatery tends to be.
Off to birthday dinner at Carne now!