Is Bernie's Pushcart on the Green still OK?

@cameronl: Yes, but it has debts as high as $30 million.

If you are the second highest grossing restaurant in the country, how can you be losing so much money?

Is this a chain? If not how does one restaurant have a 50 million dollar debt? I don't understand.

@dragonfire81: because it is gross-ing.

@dragonfire81:

They're grossing quite a bit, but it sounds like they let their overhead get way out of control, diminishing their net revenue until they couldn't stay open.

Good riddance. Pretty interior - over priced dishes - crappy food.

Can they bring the sheep back?

@hi: I don't know if it's still true but Tavern on the Green, Maxwell's Plum and Sequoia (Washington DC) had common ownership. Sequoia went bust pretty quickly with expensive mediocre food, albeit in a pretty attractive setting on the Georgetown waterfront.

The only thing more gaudy than the decor in this place is the toilet paper offering - they had rough and soft paper. I presume one may choose dependent on wiping needs. The food is forgettable.

@ilovemom: Whoa whoa whoa...are you serious? they had toilet paper options?

Were they marked as such or did you have to feel them to determine which one was going to touch you...there?

@ilovemom: Well, if the comments of the food are to be believed, toilet paper options are the least this place could do for its patrons.

@dragonfire81: This is a concept that few people seem to understand. Say you are the highest grossing company in the world and you bring in $900 trillion dollars a year in gross revenue -- if it cost you $901 trillion dollars in expenses to make that money, then you are still losing a trillion bucks a year, despite having the highest gross revenue in the world.

Basically, revenue means nothing if you don't take expenses into account.

@ilovemom: Did they offer a choice of new or used?

@dragonfire81: A very, very poorly run business. I would think before any more money would be invested, a top-to-bottom audit would be in order.

Considering their reputation as a tourist attraction with terrible food, it's hardly surprising. Still, fertile ground for a culinary rejuvenation under the right guidance.

Many restaurants like this fail because of a simple reason. they make food and charge a arm and a leg for it and it doesn't even taste as good as the food you will get from a fast food place for a fraction of the cost.
Many restaurants tend to focus mainly on atmosphere and eye candy instead of the actual food. In many cases they will get greedy and rip people off because they want mac profits per item sold and eventually people wise up to the crap and stop going there.

If a meal cost $10 for you to make, would you rather have 5 customers buy the meal at $50 or would you rather have 100 customers buy the meal at $20

many businesses fail because they don't think of the future, they only think of the hear and now and get greedy.

If you own a restaurant, you have to know that there many fast food places that will sell the same food for a fraction of the cost, the only way you can compete with them is if you either charge less, or make your food taste better than theres and if you charge 5 times as much as they do, then your food better taste 5 times as good.

if you look at some of the mist successful stores. you will notice a few things about them, when they open a store in a city or town, you hear all of the other businesses cry and protest that the company is putting them out of business, and you see most people in the area shopping at the store that the company made because they have a simple business model they they actually follow MOST of the time, charge a few cents or a few dollars less than the competing companies. people will drive miles to save a few cents

while this causes the company to make less profits per item sold, they will make more money at the end of the day due to the shear number of customers buying the item.

most businesses fail because of this mentality
" I only get 40 customers a day so for me to stay in business, I have to charge these prices"

If they became a little smarter they would change their thinking to this.

"I only get 40 customers a day. I need to fix this, I am going to lower my prices and this will greatly increase the number of customers I will get"

@dragonfire81: Because you're the second highest spender?

@hi:

They may have used the restaurant as collateral in other business ventures that may have failed miserably.

@hi: Restaurants are a tricky business. It's not just about the food. It's about generating buzz, balancing the cost of operation with profit, and not losing your core clientele, if you're so lucky as to develop it in the first place. I suspect Tavern on the Green struggled in some part because it had a clientele of tourists who were willing to shell out for the "experience" and were hard pressed to reduce their prices, even when the tourists stopped coming as often, opting to get their NYC experience at the hot dog stand instead.

@Razor512: I really don't think you can even begin to compare any of the five-star Michelin restaurants with a fast food joint. Sorry. Maybe to some people, McDonalds is as good as it gets, but I like quality meat in my burgers and would gladly shell out $13 for one.

I highly doubt upscale restaurants are competing with fast food places. No one ever debates between lunch at KFC and lunch at Central Michel Richard. They're entirely different classes of eatery. Apples and oranges.

@dragonfire81: Because your costs are greater than your revenues. Simple as that.

"isn't even wowing the tourists anymore."

I'd say that your average (non-American) tourist is more discerning than the locals....

@HiPwr: Sounds like a typical restaurant, really. Particularly any good restaurant.

@H3ion: That's not politically correct. The proper term is "recycled"

@Bruce Bayliss: I'm pretty sure most of the tourists to NYC are still Americans.

@Bruce Bayliss:

I raise my eyebrow at you sir.

@Razor512: I totally disagree. The race for lower prices is often called the race to the bottom. McDonald's serves 47 million people a day, but I hesitate to call that food or McDonald's a restaurant.

There's also a value component to it. You can charge high prices if you provide value. There are restaurants I go to where I know I'm paying more than I would at a "casual dining" restaurant, BUT, the staff there will recognize me by name, even remembers my birthday, knows exactly what I want and when I want it, is consistently good. Worth every penny. Oh, and I don't have to deal with unruly customers and their unruly children -- priceless.

@Razor512: I think there are multiple factors that make a restaurant successful and finding the balance is the hardest part (and why they go under so often). I don't think it's simply prices. But I do agree for a typical American there is a rapidly diminishing return for increasing the quality of food v price once you get above, say, Olive Garden. Unfortunate but true.

I actually think they'd do better emphasizing the location and ambiance and de-emphasizing the fancy factor. Tourists will happily pay a little extra for a non-chain experience, but not a lot. So, adjust the menu to that of a good "gastro-pub," (with prices to match); add a good selection of beers (e.g. Unibroue, Brooklyn Brewery) and wines (mid-range like Coppola, McWilliams, etc.); put in outdoor seating with heaters to push al fresco into the spring/fall; and minimize decor to "prarie modern."

@dragonfire81: Time to get Gordon Ramsay, that foul-mouthed brit chef that straightens out failing restaurants with a flair that drives the owners nuts before he's done, but they start turning profits afterwards.

@FLConsumer: I agree that five-star to McD's are apples to oranges comparisons, but I think that's missing the point a bit. Where I live, we have a heck of a lot of what are currently termed "gastropubs" where you can get a killer burger plate for $10-$15, with a nice atmosphere to boot. Those places are PACKED lately. Compare that to the "high-end" restaurants down the street that want to charge $20-$25 for basically the same grass-fed locally sourced burger option. Those places can't compete with the g-pubs, and they're going out of business.

We had an office Christmas party there in 2007. The open bar, in the big glass-walled room, was just fantastic! But having to make it back out to the street (through the park) afterwards for a cab, in Christmas party cocktail clothes, not so much.

@Razor512: I am not comparing them completely to fast food places but I am partially comparing it.

at a fast food place, I can get a hamburger weighing 150 grams for $1 while at a restaurant they will charge like $8 for a hamburger that may weigh 200 grams, while the meat is a little more quality, it generally doesn't have as strong of a taste ad the fast food places and when a restaurant does make a better tasting one, it isn't 8 dollars better tasting, it is more like $1.50 better tasting

if you had a if nvidia was selling a videocard for $129 and ATI came out with a new videocard thats slightly faster but there charging $400, which card would you go for?

restaurant food is often better made than fast food but the price difference is too much compared to the improvement in quality that you get.

Near where I work, there is a restaurant that does lunch and stuff. and a little bit further there is a wendys, 90% of the people looking for lunch will skip by the restaurant and head to wendys, even though they will be waiting longer for their food (at around 12-1PM the line in wendys will lead outside of the store)

I have eaten at the restaurant before when some friends asked me to come with them and the food was good but to me i see it as 6 times the cost for only slightly better taste and around the same food portions

Many people take into consideration value more than atmosphere and if a restaurant wants to survive in today's economy, they need to offer better value.

also PS fastfood is not designed to be the healthiest food, it is designed to taste good and fill you up at a lower cost.

when stores like burger king and mcdonalds and wendys first started, they they quickly expanded because they started a new trend, more food for less money

restaurants are in constant competition with fast food places because the main time they make money is during the lunch hours, and they need to find ways to get people into their door instead of the the door to the burger king or mcdonalds down the block.

the restaurant talked about in the article is failing because they dumped a ton of money into atmosphere and other crap and nothing into the food.

when your in a restaurant the looks only help get people in the door, the food is what keeps them there, if they fail on the food then they will loose customers.

many people here don't seem to like fast food but think about what the fast food places did to become so popular they they now have a restaurant in almost every country on the planet.

google for into on how these restaurants started. it is simple

they offers just as much food as a restaurant would offer, but at a fraction of the price.

in the restaurant world, food sells, not eye candy.

@Nighthawke:
Only problem is that many of his resturants have gone under in recent years as well, so he's not in a real position to be able to talk.

@Notsewfast: Restaurants go under faster than any other business, I read somewhere.

This sucks though. I never got a chance to go there; touristy or not, I would have liked that. I'm still pissed at bin Laden and his army of assholes for destroying Windows on the World before I got to go too.

@sleze69: The interior looks like Laura Ashley barfed on it in '85 and no one ever bothered to wipe it up.

I will agree about the prices and the food, though. I had to eat that swill when relatives came to town as tourists and could not be persuaded out of it. The lamb tasted like it had been scraped out from under a street cart and pasted back onto the bone.

@pecan 3.14159265: Michelin's highest honor is a three star rating.

Tavern on the Green doesn't even garner one Michelin star. It's SHIT food, and it is comparable to McDonalds in quality.

Here's a list of NYC's Michelin starred restaurants: [www.opentable.com]
There are quite a few great restaurants who didn't make this list, but I wouldn't put TotG in their rankings either.

@HogwartsAlum: you're right. unless they have a dollar menu.

@pecan 3.14159265: Fail. Proof that people don't know wtf they are talking about while pretending to: There is no such thing as a Michelin 5 star. 3. And what's more, it's echoed over and again through the rest of the comments. So fail en masse.

If you want to speculate on the uber competitive world of cuisine, at least try to know what you are talking about.

@kateblack: @Thangka: Geesh, chill. I didn't even say anything about Tavern on the Green.

@Razor512:
The reason your $1 hamburger has a stronger "taste" = chemical additives

@pecan 3.14159265:
Try looking at a fact before saying something. Most tourists to NYC in the past year have been foreign due to fall of the US dollar vs other currencies.

@pecan 3.14159265: Please don't read aggression into my comments because the person after me called you an idiot.

$50M in debt? Sounds like very, very poor management.

I wouldn't worry too much about the management and their ability to steal money:

"The bankrupt partnership listed assets and debts of as much as $50 million each in a filing yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, with more than 200 creditors. It said it probably won't have enough to pay unsecured creditors, after deducting expenses and exempt property."

This basically means the owners are carrying bags of silver out of Dodge while the creditors get shafted.

They may do the good ol going out of business and disappear trick.

Where they slap on the going out of business sign, then they double or quadruple the prices, then say everything is 80% off then sell everything and on the last day, auction off all of the supplies then leave the country to avoid the debt.

@FLConsumer: Yes, I, even as a poor college student, will pay higher prices periodically for good food. However, this particular restaurant was providing crap food at astronomical prices. It was bound to fail. It happens all the time here where I live. A restaurant starts up serving great food at approximately $40 a head. Word gets out and they get popular. After the first 6 months the food quality goes down the toilet (as in undercooked, burnt, or plain disgusting), prices climb and it isn't long before the place is out of business.

Go figure.

@ARP: Olive Garden used to be good. Now, I'd rather eat at Chick-fil-A. At least they have better food quality. Or maybe it is just the Olive Garden near me.