Despite the economic downturn, the restaurant business in the Temple Street area of New Haven is doing just fine, and those who sell food and drink in that area are getting their just desserts, proprietors claimed at a downtown gathering.
A city development official said that after a “couple of difficult years,” the city will be in a good position when the general economy comes back. A banker said money is available to those businesses with good cash flow and credit.
The optimistic comments flowed at a community forum Tuesday night. He told about 20 people in what was billed as a micro-economic summit on the state of downtown New Haven that his restaurant’s gross income has increased in the 50 months he has been open. Some 44 food and drink establishments have opened in the Crown Street area during that time, and all are still in business, he said.
The summit was organized by Wareck Real Estate and held at a former day-care center that once hosted Poor Lads restaurant on Crown Street, which Wareck is trying to lease, said John C. Wareck, the firm’s president. The space is in the midst of the thriving restaurant and bar scene on Crown Street. The event was the latest in which downtown boosters are trying to put forward a positive face amid the recession.
Although the media is reporting business failure after business failure, “I don’t read the media, I read my checkbook,” said Chris Candido (pictured), a co-owner Temple Grill. His gross monthly income is steadily rising, although he admitted after the meeting that his net profit is not what he had hoped.
Jesus Puerto, owner of the Soul de Cuba Cafe on Crown Street, later told a reporter his business is doing well, both at his New Haven and Honolulu restaurants. In fact, he’s doing so well that he wants to franchise 10 restaurants worldwide next year and perhaps 100 the following years.
Puerto said his Cuban restaurant was the first of its kind in the city and the first in the Hawaiian capital.
Banker A. Gayle Spinelli (pictured at the top of this story talking to Puerto) told the audience, made up mostly of real estate professionals, that credit has tightened but borrowers with good credit and good cash flow should have no problem getting loans. Spinelli, a business banking officer at Citibank’s branch at Church and Chapel streets, said it appears that the Federal Reserve will lower its key interest rate from 1 percent to 1/2 of 1 percent when it meets later this month. That’s the rate that the Fed charges banks for money.
The fact that New Haven is home to so many large institutions, such as Yale University, its medical school and the new cancer center, works to the city’s favor in these unpredictable economic times, said Michael Pinto, an economic development officer for the city. Last week ground was formally broken on the largest apartment complex to be built in the state’s history, on the old Shartenberg site.
“We will fare better than the country at large,” he said.
The large institutions tend to anchor the city’s economy, tamping down soaring increases in good times, but not allowing for deep drops such as those felt in New York, Florida or Las Vegas in bad cycles, he said.
For example, some 450 physicians will be added to the payroll to staff the new cancer center at Yale-New Haven Hospital, in addition to nurses and other staff. A related new complex udner construction at 2 Howe St. will house longer-term residence for the families of cancer patients plus some staff members and a parking garage, is well along in its construction.
Before and after the meeting, some real estate professionals, usually congenitally optimistic, were talking about the opportunities created, for example, when AT&T moved out of and then sold the Long Wharf Maritime Center II, leaving much of the building vacant. Others were saying the business has morphed into more of the management of property rather than sales or rentals.