A business lunch in this city can do serious damage to your diet and your wallet.
After all, New York is the home of the power lunch. The very name says it all: powerful people, major decisions, big expenses.
Yet, as the economy cratered and the landscape quickly changed, companies cut back on corporate cards.
But according to the restaurant ratings guru Tim Zagat, lunch didn't languish for long.
I could give you 30 or 40 restaurants in New York off the top of my head
where you will find a full house and nobody is eating less than a hundred dollars for lunch.
At the top of the tree, the Four Seasons Restaurant, a true year-rounder.
A hundred dollars for lunch is no big deal if you're trying to make a million-dollar deal.
If you go to the Four Seasons, you're likely to be making a billion-dollar deal. Lunch there is like going through a bunch of front pages of Time magazine.
If you're going to the Four Seasons, you're not worried about the bill.
If you have to think about the cost, you shouldn't be there.
I probably shouldn't be here, but I am anyway.
"Power lunch" was basically coined at the Four Seasons restaurant in the 1980s and ever since then we never stopped.
When you take somebody out, you're entertaining them.
This is about breaking bread. It's about, you know, enjoying life. It's not just spending money.
Affordable fixed-price menus aim squarely at the businessperson and are now popping up across New York.
You know it's a trend when Michelin-star restaurants like Jean-Georges are leading the way.
You have a $38 menu, so you have two courses off of a menu that would be considerably more at dinner. What it allows you to do is enjoy that luxury in a way that doesn't break the bank.
And the business lunch is still thriving, would you say?
Absolutely, if not more so than it ever has been.
According to American Express, individuals are spending less, while corporate spending is the driver of growth.
This used to be the meat market of New York, and now it's the meet market of New York.
The Midtown restaurants are going for the established crowd, but Downtown restaurants aim for the titans in T-shirts.
The Standard Grill, where mains run from around $15. Your client's impressed you could get a table, your boss even more so.
We definitely have a younger clientele here. We're very sexy and very fashionista and very cutting-edge.
Some of your biggest deals are made in jeans and a T-shirt.
Be it suit or sandals, the power lunch as an institution remains,
and that's because it's not about eating a meal. It's about making the right impression on the right person, regardless of the cost.
If you're meeting somebody who is the next big deal, forget about the price.