Sad Farmers Diner Update and Other Restaurant News

It looks like the PLG bloggers at PLOG got the scoop that we couldn't: The Farmers Diner isn't coming to Brooklyn any time soon. While Brooklyn is still part of the long-term agenda, they are focusing on going to San Fransisco first.

PLOG quotes co-owner Denise Perras:

Our hearts are still there, as we fell in love with PLG, and most importantly, the residents. At this time we are focused on the other piece of our expansion project, San Francisco area specifically. Our first location set to open in the spring.

Reading between the lines of her extended quote, it appears that while there was a lot of local enthusiasm about the project, it wasn't backed up with a willingness to invest. I confess that we were among those who were very excited about the project but didn't feel financially secure enough to put our own money into it.

I also have to give credit to PLOG for this: I have a few pages of a notebook full of restaurant Board of Health ratings from the neighborhood but they went out and created an integrated map with ratings, including ratings for some restaurants that I'm pretty sure still have "Grade Pending" signs in the window. I have to remember to send them some of my notes for Rogers and Nostrand, since it seems that they only covered Flatbush and west.

You can also consider this a much-belated Welcome Aboard to PLOG, which has been doing a very good job since they started blogging in November.

Comments

[diak]

I'm not sure what happened with Farmer's Diner either but I can tell you that I after briefly meeting the owners at House Tour, I tried contacting them three times them via e-mail (using both the contact on their website and the address on their business card) with the message that I was interested in knowing more about investing in their Brooklyn project.

I never heard back from them...

[Jeanne]

Hopefully an expert will know more about this, but I really want to know, how common is it for a restaurant not to prefer experienced backers who invest most or all the money in a bigger chunk? And not piecemeal from regular folk. That whole thing made me wonder if the typical terms Farmers Diner would get with such an investor weren't acceptable to them. Or what. It doesn't seem appropriate to blame the community of PLG for not doing enough to bring them here. The expectation the community could raise nearly a million dollars was pretty unrealistic. It's not the top priority for a lot of people. Sometime soon there will be a capital campaign for the charter school for its own building, and Maple Street School also hopes to find a new building in the next few years. The restaurant and its concept and pricing and menu all would have been such a great fit here; it was a brilliant thought to approach them. But it was a strange situation. At least to me, and I readily admit my ignorance about restaurant investing.

[Charles Star]

I don't know that I - or they - would use the term "blame." They have a specific investment strategy that they use. It minimizes their financial risk and gets the community invested in the success of the venture. That it didn't work out is disappointing but there is no reason to see it in terms of anyone's moral failure. It's just business.

With a bit of luck there will be a Farmers Diner in PLG in the future.

[babs]

Nearly $1 million to open a restaurant? Yeah, that would be ideal, but we have neighbors who've done it on a lot less (K-Dog, Blue Roost, et al - I'm leaving out the Jim Mamary empire, Sushi Tatsu, King of Tandoor, and Gino's, since all have restaurants outside of PLG as well - not that they aren't fabulous also for investing in our community) and these entrepreneurs deserve our support. Personally, I'm a little insulted by the "we'll open a restaurant in your neighborhood if you'll pay for it" business model.

[Jeanne]

Well said, Babs. There are members of the PLG community who would love to open a restaurant or some other business here and be the recipient of investments by their neighbors to help make it happen. I'm glad to hear somebody else was/is insulted by the Farmers Diner business model, too! I had been thinking surely I couldn't be the only one.