Midtown Lunch

Ever since I started this blog (almost 4 years ago), friends and family have been telling me “You should expand!” “Branch out to other cities.” “Register a ton of ‘lunch’ domain names, and conquer the world!!!” And my thought was “Clearly you don’t read my blog. Or work in Midtown.” The site is called Midtown Lunch. It’s about lunch… in Midtown. It is what it is, and that’s why it’s so great. And even if I did want to expand, there’s one major problem: there is no place like Midtown. Seriously. We couldn’t have done this anywhere else. As much as we all like to joke and call it a wasteland, no city in the country has an area comparable to Midtown. Nowhere can you find so many people, crammed into such a small space, with so many lunch options. Despite all of its faults, Midtown is unique. Midtown is (dare I say) special.

The truth is, I never had any intention of turning this site into something bigger. Hell, I never intended it to be anything more than a hobby slash excuse to eat gross lunches every day. I started it for fun… a Midtown Lunch’er myself, eager to leave my co-workers to their boring turkey sandwiches while I went in search of something a bit more satisfying.

But clearly you guys had a different plan for me.

The community that has formed around this site over the past 3 1/2 years continues to blow me away every single day. Without you guys, this site would be nothing. And the amazing thing is you’re not just people looking for lunch in Midtown. You’re from all over New York, and beyond, coming together to share in your need to seek out a good lunch An interesting lunch. An authentic lunch. A delicious lunch. An under $10 lunch! Or as we have come to call it affectionately… a Midtown Lunch. Because, after all, there is no bigger crime than wasting that one hour we all get in the middle of the day on something boring.

And then one day recently it dawned on me. Maybe expanding wasn’t about trying to find Midtowns all over the country, and starting a bunch of different sites. Maybe expanding should be about going to other cities, and finding the best Midtown Lunches those places have to offer. Because isn’t that what we’re all looking for?

So I’m proud to announce that today begins a new chapter in Midtown Lunch’s history. You’ll notice in the upper left hand corner of the site there are now links for Downtown NYC and Philadelphia. If you have been reading Midtown Lunch forever, and don’t want anything to change, ignore those links and nothing will. This will be the same Midtown Lunch you are used to reading day in day out. But if you work Downtown, or in Philadelphia, or maybe you just work in Midtown but love looking at other people’s lunches… check it out. They aren’t separate sites, but just new sections of the new and expanded www.midtownlunch.com.

Chris and Kevin (the two guys who have been doing the Downtown Lunch column for the past few months) will be heading up the Downtown site, while Jamie (who you remember as a former Profiled Midtown Lunch’er) will be handling Philadelphia (she moved there awhile back.)  You can read about all of them on our new bios page. I’m super excited to have them on board, and I hope you guys will show them the same love and support you give me every day… whether you work on 48th & 6th, Wall Street, or in Center City.

Of course they will need your help just as much as I have. If you have recommendations, comments, suggestions, tips, whatever. Put them in the comments… or even better, the forums. The Downtown NYC forum has been active for some time, but today we are excited to launch the Philadelphia forum as well. It’s pretty sparse right now, but we hope that in time it will become just as fun and active as the Midtown forums. Want to contact us directly? All that info is on the contact page.

So there it is. Welcome to the new Midtown Lunch! Hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoy doing it.