Midtown Lunch

In lieu of our regular Flatiron review, we wanted to encourage you to do your part to help our neighborhood eating establishments who all took a hit during Hurricane Sandy.

Dear Fellow Lunch’ers,

We hope your lives are starting to return to normal. With so many in the tri-state area still without power and heat, it is hard to feel normal putting in 9-5. I can tell you I have been feeling the pull of wanting to volunteer all last week and this week. I spent a couple hours last Sunday with 20 other volunteers helping to demo a restaurant that took on about 8 feet of water by South Street Seaport. At the risk of sounding preachy, it made me feel like I helped even if it was just a couple hours, and throwing out a restaurant-sized fridge worth of spoiled food made my fridge and freezer clean out seem minor (and it was). I can also tell you week old scallops without refrigeration can stink up a city block instantly. If you want to help, Occupy Sandy continues to post needs and volunteer opportunities.

For something we can all do a little closer to home to help – EAT OUT! What did you say? We all already do that? Well, keep doing it!

One of the first things I did was head to the 7-Eleven on Fifth Avenue between 26th and 27th that was providing a free charging station to give them my business. I can’t say I am normally a fan, but for what they did for the neighborhood, I figured they deserved my $2.79 for a buffalo chicken roller and a chicken monterey jack roller.

In our ML universe, Andrea’s Downtown lunch was probably hardest hit with no power and major flood damage. Here in Flatiron, most of our dining establishments went for almost week without business in addition losing major $ on spoiled food. If you have been reading the news, some will be fine and some will not. If you have a favorite you can’t imagine your lunch hour without, do your part now and go there!

Hey ML’ers to the North! We encourage you to visit us and our restaurants! Go for a brisk walk or hop on the subway and buy a lunch (or dinner or breakfast or drink…we don’t discriminate.)

In fact, a few articles I have read made great suggestions about how to make the most impact. DineOutNYC posted my favorite list. In particular, I enjoyed the suggestion to “Order something extra.” Okay, twist my arm.

And I fully support the idea of “Tip well, tip often, and tip in cash”. Thinking about all the restaurant workers who went without pay for days, I am happy to throw some extra cash their way, especially delivery men who probably delivered in terrible conditions at some point during the last 2 weeks. And to make it even more fun, you can post to the Eat Down. Tip Up. tumblr. Eat downtown, double or so your tip, and share your NYC Flatiron eating pride with the world. In fact, I visited Bhatti, one of my favorites, and did just that!

Not that we need a reason to eat our lunch out, but now we really have a purpose.