Midtown Lunch

Wednesday I allowed a Midtown Lunch’er to air his grievance against Naples 45 (on 45th btw. Mad+5th), a restaurant that has raised the price of their after 2pm slice special twice in the past year.  The restaurant responded yesterday with an email of their own:

Dear Zach,

The article about Naples 45 posted [Wednesday] on Midtown Lunch saddens us, as the afternoon slice discount has always been a program of goodwill towards the community.The price of flour has gone up four times over the past 12 months, and the dollar is at a record low against the Euro — which means that the Italian ingredients that we import to make our authentic Neopolitan pizza (San Marzano tomatoes, Italian low-gluten wheat flour) have gone up multifold. We have been forced to raise the price of the afternoon special slice to $1.75 from $1.25 (available after 2 PM).

But we are still keeping the price at under $2 — whereas elsewhere in the city slices have similarly gone up and many charge up to $3 (see a recent article in The New York Times here.)

Patina Restaurant Group

It’s all fun and games until somebody gets saddened.  All Some kidding aside though, as much as I’d like to get sarcastic and tear this email to shreds, I do feel bad for these restaurants who are forced to find a balance between the rising cost of goods on one side, and cheapo bastards with blogs on the other side.  It also helps to know that commenters will probably do it for me.