Midtown Lunch

It looks like the short lived Empanada Joe’s (on 8th Ave. btw. 43+44th) is becoming a place called Roma Pizza.  If the look of the sign is any indication, I’m guessing this will be just another generic 8th Ave. New York City fast food pizza place (aka for the tourists.)  I guess only time will [...]

File this email I just received under ‘Surprising (but not that surprising)’: “Just walked by the 43rd and 8th Avenue Empanada Joe’s (I had given this place two chances, and disappointed twice) and it was closed, a sign directing people to go to their 6th Avenue location.”

Got a really interesting comment about Empanada Joe’s (on 8th Ave. btw. 43+44th) recently that I wanted to share. I just want to say up front, I have absolutely no evidence that this comment is a shill. The person who made the comment has never commented before, but there is nothing that would indicate they [...]

Clearly the shilling from the newly opened Empanada Joe’s (on 8th Ave. btw. 43+44th) knows no boundaries. I got the comment you see above on one of my flickr photos over the weekend. The shilling that happens in the comments of this site is well documented, and Eater makes a point of calling out all [...]

 
Yesterday Eater felt the need to single out Empanada Joe’s with their own “Adventures in Shilling” post, pointing out many positive comments that could have only been posted by people with a financial interest in the new chain succeeding. We just got our own Empanada Joe’s location (the second in the chain) on 8th Ave. btw. 43+44th, [...]

The original post about this new chain got some interesting comments. Some of the negative ones were obviously fake, and some of the positive ones were obviously shills. Tomorrow, we get to check it out for ourselves. The empanadas are touted as “always fresh, not frozen” and clearly “gourmet.”  They’re also overpriced- but I’ll reserve judgement until [...]

From a Lunch’er email: “Looks like the critically-panned Empanada Joe’s has setup shop and will be opening soon (on 8th Ave. btw. 43+44th.) Interior looked 80% done, maybe within a month they’ll open?”  According to Eater, there is a location already open in Morningside Heights, where an empanada costs $3.38.  Hmmm.  A “critically panned” $3+ empanada [...]