Do We Need a European Cookie Store?

Rumor has it that the recently departed The Adore on 13th St. will be replaced by another French cafe. More rumors soon.

Here’s a great article about the Union Square Holiday market.

NYC’s zoning for businesses has recently changed, allowing for a wider range of retail and experiential offerings. In Union Square, this means new opportunities to lease to unique amusement and recreation facilities, live entertainment establishments and clean production and maker spaces. This bolsters the emerging trends in Union Square, where new nightlife hotspots like Midnight Blue and Upright Citizens Bridge have established
roots alongside a cluster of experiential retail arcades like Boba Box, Sweet Cats Cafe, and Partea. And with the much anticipated 2025 opening of the darts-centric bar Flight Club at 31 Union Square West, Union Square is poised to be at the center of this new wave of ground-floor leasing enabled by the modernized zoning code.

From the Times:
The countdown has begun to the closing of the 16th Street space that this influential restaurant has occupied for 30 years. The cafe, which was the first piece of Danny Meyer’s culinary empire, has been a favorite of New York’s publishing world and jump-started the renaissance of the Union Square area. But it will not renew its lease at a higher rent, and in the spring will relocate to nearby 235 Park Avenue South, at East 19th Street.

To mark the final days at its current spot, from Dec. 1 to 12, the last day of service, the restaurant will switch to a three-course dinner menu called the 12 Nights of Union Square Cafe, highlighting some of its best-known seasonal dishes, including garganelli with white truffles, beef tartare, lamb braciole and Berkshire rack of pork. There are optional wine pairings from some of the restaurant’s favorite producers. Lunches will feature the regular à la carte menu:

Dinner reservations Dec. 1 to 12 by phone only, $85 prepaid; lunch reservations up to 28 days ahead, opentable.com;

Union Square Cafe, 21 East 16th Street, 212-243-4020,

unionsquarecafe.com.

This year’s annual shareholder meeting will take place virtually on October 12. Watch your mail and e-mail for log-in details.

Here’s the news: “The New York City Water Board voted on Friday morning to approve a 14.5 percent increase for water and sewer rates, the largest increase since 1992. When the new rate is in place on July 1, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office, water rates will have risen a cumulative 77 percent since 2001, and double-digit increases are expected to keep coming for at least a few more years.”

This is one of those uncontrollable costs that bedevil the co-op’s budget every year. The only thing we can do about it: use less water. We’ve already taken steps to examine our infrastructure and make sure we have discovered any sources of waste and leaks. Other than that, it’s all about less consumption.