New York City Mayor Eric Adams joined local, Bronx elected officials and others on Arthur Avenue in the Little Italy section of the Bronx on Sunday to highlight the importance of the City’s restaurants and restaurant workers to New York’s economy.

 

The mayor was heard highlighting the need to support hospitality workers, saying, “I was a dishwasher so you know, sometimes people don’t connect the dots, man, you know? We need these restaurants.”

 

Andrew Rigie, executive director of NYC Hospitality Alliance, chair of NYC Nightlife Advisory Board, 1st vice chair of Manhattan Community Board 7, and host of the “Hospitality and Politics” podcast, concurred, saying, “They’re the economic foundation but also the social landscape for the City, you know…without the restaurants… the jobs, the business, the foot traffic – everything!”

 

.@NYCMayor Adams joins Bronx electeds on Arthur Avenue to talk the importance of our restaurants and restaurant workers to the city economy. pic.twitter.com/7oFmIKdgu4

— NYC Mayor's Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) February 6, 2022

District 15 City Councilman Oswald Feliz added, “And these are some of our most vulnerable workers, so absolutely, we definitely got to look out for them,” to which the mayor added, in jest [we assume], “And reporters don’t have anything to do ’cause they follow me at all my restaurants.”

 

The mayor joined Rigie, Feliz, the commissioner for NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS), Kevin Kim, District 13 City Council Member Marjorie Velázquez, District 17 City Council Member Rafael Salamanca Jr., and District 12 City Council Member Kevin Riley, for the impromptu, outdoor, Sunday brunch in the Boogie Down at Mario’s restaurant, located at 2342 on Arthur Avenue.

 

A representative of Mario’s later confirmed that the mayor’s menu had been pre-selected by his team, and consisted of escarole and beans, pasta primavera and pasta marinara.

 

Due to the overwhelming response, the application for the NYC Small Business Resilience Grant has been paused. Check https://t.co/IFwP1k93LN for updates if additional funding becomes available.

If you already started an application, please complete it as soon as possible! pic.twitter.com/PlO3DK5KQU

— NYCSmallBusiness (@NYC_SBS) December 22, 2021

Adams, a vegan, who has often talked about the benefits of a plant-based diet to promote a healthy lifestyle, recently supported the proposal to implement “Vegan Fridays,” at public school cafeterias.

 

According to a recent report by ABC News, the mayor said in an interview on WNBC-TV on Friday, Feb 4, “I can’t tell people what to put on their grills on the weekend. But darn it, we should not be feeding the health care crisis in our prisons, our hospitals, and most importantly, in our schools, so we want to go in a more healthy direction.”

 

Learn about the Emerging Business Enterprise (EBE) certification program! Join @NYC_SBS for a webinar on 2/7.
Topics include:
* the Payee Information Portal
* registering for product service codes
* starting your application https://t.co/hIPXoiMg6B

— NYCSmallBusiness (@NYC_SBS) February 5, 2022

 

Meanwhile, Rigie has been a longtime vocal advocate for the hospitality industry which was all but decimated amid the early stages of the pandemic, when the New York State Pause order took effect, and most businesses were forced to close temporarily.

 

A number of revitalization programs and initiatives were put in place over the last two years, as reported, to help revive the industry, including the Open Streets and Open Restaurants campaigns. On the other hand, there has been some pushback against programs like Open Restaurants from a quality of life and noise perspective, as reported.

 

Great day on Arthur Avenue in the #boogiedownbronx!! Thank you to @mariosarthurave, Enzo’s of Arthur Ave, Emilia’s Restaurant & Dominick’s!! pic.twitter.com/4cfWomHmbJ

— Charles Kretchmer Lutvak (@CLutvak) February 6, 2022

 

City Council committees will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, Feb. 8, at 10 a.m. when council members will hear from the public and others on discussions around making the Open Restaurants program permanent. Members of the public can sign up to testify here: https://council.nyc.gov/testify/.

 

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Feb. 5, a “Chuck the Sheds” march and rally, championed by the group, CueUp NYC, was held in Greenwich Village in Manhattan to oppose the program.

Learn how the government can become your customer!

Join @NYC_SBS on Tues, 2/8, 10am-12pm for our Selling to Government Series. We'll cover how to pursue contracts for your business at the City, State, and Federal government levels.

RSVP today! https://t.co/Ltyu13hXkU

— NYCSmallBusiness (@NYC_SBS) February 5, 2022

As also reported, a study by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce released in April 2021 showed that The Bronx received just 7 percent of all federal Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans allocated to New York City. This was the second lowest percent of all five boroughs, after Staten Island.

 

A later report by the State Comptroller‘s office released in June 2021 found that the COVID-19 pandemic had hit the Bronx harder than any other borough by several measures, based on that office’s economic analysis.

 

When Norwood News spoke to local small businesses at the height of the crisis, one of the main complaints business owners had was the complexity and red tape involved in applying for relief. Some very small businesses, which had no full-time employees were ineligible for relief, like Father & Son’s Kitchen, an artisan, gourmet food company and personal chef service, based at Bronx Cook Space, 50E. 168th Street.

 

With so many small businesses located in The Bronx, reopening was critical to the livelihoods of many across the borough. When indoor dining did return, at a later point, another issue, however, was that cold and dangerous weather sometimes prevented seniors from getting out and supporting their local eateries. This was evidenced again in recent days as icy sections along treelined parts of Bainbridge Avenue in Norwood did little to increase foot traffic at the neighborhood’s local restaurants.

 

Though the City’s priority is obviously to clear streets and roadways to allow for deliveries and emergency vehicles, in a borough where most people travel by subway, walking to that subway to perhaps get to a favorite restaurant can sometimes be a treacherous journey amid wintery weather conditions, especially for seniors and people with disabilities.

 

On the positive front, small businesses can learn how New York City government can become their customer during a virtual seminar on Tuesday, Feb. 8 at 10 a.m. For more information on this and other grant opportunities, check out the tweets attached to this story, above.

 

For those who may be curious to try out some fast, vegan recipes, here are three dishes which, reportedly, can be prepared in under 15 minutes.

 

Video courtesy of SweetPotatoSoul via Tube

Meanwhile, in other vegan-related news, longtime vegan author and speaker, “Earthling Ed,” whose latest book, “This is Vegan Propaganda (and Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You),” has recently been doing the rounds at U.S. college campuses debating students and others on the topic of veganism.

 

 

Video courtesy of Earthling Ed via YouTube

 

“We’ve objectified animals so much that we refer to them as livestock, stock that just so happens to be alive, an inconvenience that they were even alive to begin with,” Earthling Ed has been quoted as saying.