General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Power Lunch Is Officially Dead
New York MagazineTo quickly recap: Opened in 1959, the original Four Seasons occupied the landmarked Seagrams Building for 57 years and was, during that time, the sun around which power-broker planets (titans of industry, celebrities, people with big inheritances) orbited. Long story short, landlord Aby Rosen who also tried to get rid of the restaurants Picasso eventually gave owners Julian Niccolini and von Bidder the boot.
Furniture, flatware, and other pieces of the original restaurant were auctioned off; someone paid $10,000 for a set of ashtrays. The tree-motif sign went for $96,000 not counting sales tax or a 20 percent buyers premium. It was a Big Deal. People, Grub included, wrote tributes and obituaries. The restaurant meant something, and its closing marked a definitive end of an era.
My mother was once at a business lunch with Elizabeth Rohatyn, when the Maitre D' came by to ask if Brooke Astor could join them, since she had shown up alone, apparently under the impression she was having lunch with someone...
Fun fact: when you celebrated your birthday there, they brought out a plate of cotton candy...
murielm99
(30,755 posts)and now the power lunch are dying institutions.
I can't say that makes me unhappy.
brooklynite
(94,698 posts)If you're going to kill yourself with cholesterol, order the Steak Dianne and the chocolate souffle...
murielm99
(30,755 posts)I used to eat that way then. I can't do it now.
Also, I used a lot more salt.
Initech
(100,099 posts)Mine just did a few months ago. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Expect happy hour-centric places to become a booming business though!
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)lounge around the same pool? What a complete waste of time.
Retrograde
(10,146 posts)Would he have considered interrupting a table of two men to ask if a stranger could join them? Or did he just think that because they were women they didn't have anything important to discuss and seating an extra person at their table would be no big deal? Or did Astor think that because she had $$$ she could impose herself on other people so they could entertain her?
Those are other attitudes associated with high-end restaurants I'm glad to see go away.
brooklynite
(94,698 posts)...and the Maitre 'D knew both of them.
UniteFightBack
(8,231 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)A big component to success is lasting long enough to develop a name. The closing restaurant certainly had the name part down, so other things likely caused it to fail. My view is that even wealthy people don't have the time or patience to sit around idly with their economic class. That is why institutions that promoted that are failing.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)cwydro
(51,308 posts)I doubt that particular fashion will ever go out of style.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)same type of work that I do. I can sometime learn a lot. But I would not want to be around them one, two, three times per week.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)I think theyre quite popular in Hollywood still as well.
Deals are also made on the golf course. Power teeing, I guess.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)while working. That is the modern corporate reality.
murielm99
(30,755 posts)meals and snacks to their employees. Perks like those keep valued employees happy.
I have worked places where eating at one's desk was not allowed. It looked bad to visitors and guests. It implied that the employees were overworked or inefficient, take your pick.