Why New York is the Worst Place to Do Business in the USA: Entrepreneurs' Opinions

New York's progress in the fight against coronavirus is of little help to retailers who say doing business in the city is worse than anywhere else. Writes about it New York Post.

National retailers - from Shake Shack, Applebee's and cap retailer Lids - say their New York stores are recovering more slowly than neighboring states, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which are also hit hard by the coronavirus.

Sources say the problem lies in Manhattan, which was previously teeming with tourists. Wealthy Manhattanians have more resources to move indefinitely to less densely populated cities like the Hamptons, experts say.

Burger chain Shake Shack, which has 162 restaurants in 20 states, said its New York locations "will take longer to fully recover than in other parts of the country."

The burger chain made the announcement on July 7 and reported that sales at the same New York City store in the week of July 1 fell 58% from a year earlier, the steepest decline of any region. Sales in the chain's stores in the northeast and southeast fell by only 24% and 32%, respectively.

While Shake Shack did not specifically mention Manhattan, Zane Tankel, who owns 35 Applebees in the NYC metro area, said he has opened 18 restaurants in neighboring regions, including Brooklyn and Queens. But he sees no point in opening two establishments in Manhattan.

“I drive around the city all the time and it was easy to realize that there was not enough traffic to open these restaurants,” Tankel said.

Macy's, Manhattan's flagship with over 1 million square feet of retail space, is also concerned. When asked how his stores in New York, which opened on June 22, are performing compared to the rest of the country, the spokeswoman said it was too early to tell, as “the continuing trend of working from home means fewer people will go to the city. and the level of international and domestic tourism “remains low”.

On the subject: Retail Apocalypse: Over 10 years, the number of empty retail space in New York has doubled

Starbucks appears to have suffered too, said Mark Kalinowski, a restaurant analyst and founder of Kalinowski Equity Research, who pointed to the company's June announcement that only 5% of establishments remained completely closed, even for take-out orders.

According to Starbucks, most of the closed stores "are mainly located in the New York metro area."

“It's crazy to see Central Park and Times Square empty,” Kalinowski laments.

Lawrence Berger, chairman of sports equipment company Lids, said he has been discouraged by the collapse of business at the chain's two most efficient stores - 1501 Broadway and 2 Times Square - since they opened on June 22.

Traffic at these stores was down 85% from a year ago, compared with an average 20% decline in 900 other Lids stores that opened across the country, Berger said.

Meanwhile, according to Berger, consumer traffic at Lids stores in neighboring New Jersey and Pennsylvania actually grew 30% from a year ago. And they all opened at the same time.

“We expected New York to be like the rest of the country when we reopen stores here, but this is absolutely not the case,” concluded Berger. - There is no way to make money. This is an economically disadvantageous situation. "