Everything Old is New Again............Not Tavern on the Green

Tavern on the Green.  New York City. Tavern on the Green in New York City.  A landmark. A way of life for New Yorkers.  A must place to visit for tourists.  The night before NYC marathon pasta party. The winter nights having dinner while looking at the snow covered park.  The more than Glitzy lighting in the restaurant that made people of all ages want to be there.  The romantic weddings always taken place there. ( In fact, my ex-wife had her first wedding there). Something about Tavern on the Green that made it part of New York, for all New Yorkers.

       Guess what New Yorkers and people around the world.  Tavern on the Green is just another one of those great places that we can only talk about in the past tense, and only remember what was.  It is like the top of the world trade center, Top of the six's , the Rainbow Room, and all the other legendary places that have gone to the land of Going, Going, Gone.

     Tavern on the Green is now Food Truck on the Green.   The site of the closed restaurant officially became home to some of the city's hippest fast food yesterday when four food trucks opened for business on the former Central Park restaurant's grounds. Outside the once famous Tavern is now a Turkish Taco truck, a Soup Truck, a Rickshaw Dumpling Truck, and a Van Leewen ice-cream truck.
I don't know about you, but as a ex-New Yorker who has been there many times..............I am sad.  It never mattered about the food not being great in Tavern on the Green.........it was the part of NY that we all loved.  It was part of the Park.  It was a landmark.  It was gory and glitzy inside.  It was lots of things, but what it really was......................was a part of New York....................I for one am going to miss you.  I hope no-one buys anything from these trucks.  I would rather see it decay before becoming another type of fast food family.

      Food trucks are great, and I have now problem with them, but please, not by my Tavern on the Green.

Unions Suck aka RIP Tavern on the Green

I have always had a hatred for Unions.  I detested them as a kid, I grew to dislike them more during my first job, and the supreme hatred really began as I started my own neckwear company.  I was very content making my merchandise at a local contractor in NY for several years, until the neckwear union started their crap and recruiting of my employees.  Because of my complete negative feelings and knowledge of how my employees would have less with the union, we all decided to fight it. Well, it was literally a fight and we will save that story for another day.  Rather than submit to the lies, nonsense, bad policies, and everything else connected to this fairly strong union at the time, I moved my entire production to Italy.  We did however have another incident with the union at our distribution center in LIC a year later.  Fortunately for me, my employees with the help of several baseball bats convinced the union reps their presence was not welcome.  That was a scene right out of Bronx Tale, but that was our last visit or call from this union. (that is now gone).

     I really didn't want to get into my hatred of unions, but an article in the NY Post this morning set my wheels in motion.

The Tavern on the Green will not be re-opened as we once knew it.  At least not in the foreseeable future.  Tavern on the Green  as we all loved and was a true NY landmark will go by the way of other great places.  Gone will be those great Sunday brunch's, weddings, dinner parties, fabulous views of the park, glittering and glitzy fun days are gone.  Another Great place is now in the history books. Why did this happen?  How could this happen ? Who is responsible for letting this happen ? Sure there have been changes in ownership, and fights with the city about leases etc., but that is not why.  The WHY is simple................The f**ken unions......Yup once again the worthless pieces of shit that control the restaurant business in NY has struck.
     In 1960, approximately 1/3 rd of all workers were union.  In 1983  there were aprx. 17 million union workers. In 2009 there were aprx. 15 million. {Dept of Labor Union Info.)  I only hope that by 2011 it is down to 4,582 members worldwide who are only labor leaders with no one to lead.

    So here is the latest facts that caused Tavern on the Green not to reopen. These are really the union issues and I had nothing to do with this.  Waiters, not management ,determine how many servers are needed on shifts........Busboys can't do any other work like unloading produce from a delivery truck.......Who would e responsible if the workers' pensions were underfunded.......How  an arbiter would be selected to settle disputes.....these are just some of the union demands that were a dealbreaker.  Whatever happened to the days where small business owners ran their own business ??????  The government and now the unions.... How will this country ever grow and be economically sound when business's cease being allowed to be a business.???  So to the other 20,000 restaurants in NY I give this advice.  Stock up on baseball bats and teach your workers how to use them.