Downturn Updrafts

Michael Batterberry, Ariane Batterberry
Posted: February 3, 2009

Farewell 2009, and be sure to close the door behind you. Thank the calendar gods we're about to be handed a new, clean-paged decade ready for entering unlimited-and wised-up-fresh starts.

Not that 2009 hasn't presented periodic evidence of assorted silver linings and impending turnaround. In the it's-an-ill-wind department, for example, the same downturn that knocked the stuffing out of Wall Street knocked any lingering stuffiness out of the restaurant mystique (and along with it, to be sure, receptionist and maître d' attitude). And, waving a broom at spooks in the corner just before Halloween, came official announcement that the economy had grown at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter.

In this column, shortly after the recession's outset, we deplored the media's raptor circling of the restaurant industry, eyed, as always in a downturn, as a feast of sitting ducks and fish in a barrel. True to form, pronouncements and predictions ran from gloomy to dire. But then, lo and behold, towards Labor Day and the wrap-up of the summer restaurant season, there appeared in the New York Post our favorite food pages headline of the year: "The bust' is a bust. Restaurants survive & thrive in lieu of demise." In what amounted to an unusually brave and honest public apology on the part of himself ("I was among the wrongheaded") and his fellow scribes ("in every other newspaper, magazine, and blog") Steve Cuozzo, the usually acerbic but always straightshooting (most often dead-on) restaurant critic, wrote that "predictions of a flood of big-name restaurant closings have turned into baloney...the dining scene isn't as remotely depressed as the buzz had it." Indeed, he noted, "chefs and owners are taking new plunges." As for silver linings, he also observed that curtailed private party business had benefited public dining room customers in that "coincidentally or not, I've never seen so many well-known chefs in their restaurants as I have this summer."

In whatever business, nothing concentrates the mind like fear of contagious financial flameout. Accordingly, faced with economic uncertainties, chefs and operators have turned from their boomtime pursuit of the next new thing in favor of the next sure thing. This has spurred yet another resurgence of "comfort food," which today is as likely to mean artisanal three-cheese ravioli as meat loaf and mash. Interestingly, the recessionary ploy of "shopping your closet," a nightmare for retailers, can spell restaurant success if a chef possesses the flavor artistry and technical skill to raid tired, trampled, or neglected traditional dishes and menu formats-regional, national, seasonal, or global-and refigure them to meet heightened 21st century culinary standards and diner expectations.

In a year like this, it's worth repeating that the timeless attracts all generations. In effect, by plying them with revitalized old favorites, from cupcakes to brunch to bone-in roasts, restaurants can tap into any crowd's silver lining.

Have a rewarding new decade,

Michael Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher
Ariane Batterberry, Founding Editor/Pulisher