69-Year-Old New York Post Writer Says Millennials Have Killed The Thing That Made New York City Special: "Power Lunch"

After roughly 6,000 millennial blogs, it takes a lot to get me to fire up the "Create New Blog Post" screen. I don't even get out of bed for the economy and housing market and chain restaurant stories. But the New York Post got my full attention when this tweet crawled through my timeline in between hitting refresh on "deadspin fired" search results:

The Power Lunch. The latest victim of 22-37 year olds in New York City. 

You've heard of power lunches. You may not be very familiar with them, because you have a job and you work at that job and order Seamless to the office every day because you're scared to leave your desk to go to the bathroom let alone for a 3-hour lunch— but you know what they are. 

And you killed them like the gutless, entitled millennial brats you are. At least that's what Post op-ed writer and proud Baby Boomer Steve Cuozzo says in his scathing takedown today.

Michael’s restaurant, Midtown’s fabled lunch spot for the media elite, celebrates its 30th anniversary on Nov. 6. It’s a grand, well-deserved milestone for restaurateur Michael McCarty’s beloved institution. But the ideal it embodies — power as the main course, with Nicoise salad on the side — isn’t long for the world.

…beyond the white and yellow walls of 24 W. 55th St., New York City’s “power lunch” scene that we once knew and loved is all but over. It wasn’t always as real as nostalgists claim…but there was substance behind the myth. The afternoon ritual was truly one of the things that made the city special. [NYP]

How special? 

So fucking special. 

Look at how fucking special power-lunching made New York City:

So much happens there: “Star Wars” creator George Lucas wooed his future wife Mellody Hobson, author Jay McInerney clinched a TV show deal and late Fox News Channel boss Roger Ailes loved to go “just so I can irritate liberals.”

…certain places still attract power faces from certain businesses. There are celebrities, lawyers and real estate moguls at Il Gattopardo and at Porter House. Judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys meet and greet at Forlini’s downtown on Baxter Street. Fashionistas and artists blow air-kisses at Balthazar.

…Michael’s is the rare power pit that remains vital, and not only for media boldfaces. Its rear garden room is popular with less-well-known dealmakers in finance and high-end real estate as well.

You were so concerned with yourself and your fiscal responsibility, let me ask you, did you stop to think about all the media moguls and Wall Street bankers and fashionistas that you were hurting with your actions?  George Lucas doesn't even eat lunch anymore I heard. He's just constantly hungry from breakfast to dinnertime. 

But forget all those big shots for a second. We haven't even mentioned the biggest victim here: what about STEVE??!?

…My late mother-in-law, who was editor-in-chief of the Ladies’ Home Journal, held court in the Four Seasons Pool Room, where I thrilled to the parade of her peers and competitors. My late Post colleague Claudia Cohen introduced me to Le Cirque regulars including her future husband Ronald Perelman….

My producer friend knew everyone at Midtown French glamour spot La Cote Basque. They hilariously thought I was important because he was; a few even invited me to lunch on my own. My New York Post higher-ups gave me too much wine at the Water Club, now a mostly private-event space, where wheelers and dealers sipped their California chardonnay and watched the ships go by.

To quote Uncle Frank: 

Steve's friends don't even invite him to Le Cirque to drink California chard anymore. Ladies' Home Journal won't even mail his subscription let alone get him into the Four Seasons.  

And why? Because you care about typical millennial shit like "your health" and "food that tastes good"?

...Restaurateurs and chefs, chased by high Midtown rents, began taking their wares elsewhere, too: to Tribeca, Soho, the Lower East Side. Changing tastes and lifestyles meant that younger executives preferred lighter dishes and mineral water to prime rib and martinis.

…the schmoozing and table-hopping encounters by heavy-hitters who could move markets — the essence of old-school power-lunching at Michael’s or the extinct Four Seasons — is slowly but surely going the way of flip phones.

Suit-and-tie-wearing machers in media and Wall Street gave way to “influencers” — millennials in Untuckit shirts who, when they’re not picking at salads at their desks, crowd communal tables at the bare-bones, gluten- and meat-free Village Den on West 12th Street.

But the power mystique that still hangs over other celebrated institutions is mostly an illusion….the curtain long ago came down on the dining-room floor show at Sardi’s, where seemingly wall-to-wall Shuberts, Nederlanders and Barrymores used to talk up every new production. The food’s a lot better today, but not the cast.

That's how self-absorbed and self-obsessed millennials are: they'll eat healthy food at their desks at work instead of going to an overpriced restaurant with shitty food just for the chance to see somebody cool enough to snap a picture with their flip phone.  And their fucking shirts aren't even down to their knees!!!!!

You're probably already convinced of the allure and romance of the old Manhattan power lunch from what you've read from Steve so far, but we haven't even hit the conclusion— where he doesn't just hammer the point home, he fucking picks it up and piledrives it through a flaming table:

…Eighty percent male and nearly 100 percent white, it defined the elitism of high-end dining day or night. It promoted heavy drinking, smoking and lousy, overpriced food that privileged customers charged to their companies. 

…The decline of power lunching also accelerated the demise of civilized, comfortable dining rooms with muted sound levels and a taste of history-making in the smoke-filled air.

Face-to-face, human contact made for better decision-making than FaceTime. Wealthy Four Seasons habitues like Jack Rudin and Felix Rohatyn successfully strategized to save the once-crumbling city from ruin over a $40 baked potato. Today’s crowd anywhere is more likely to yak about Kardashian clickbait over microgreens.

The Four Seasons had a mostly sexagerian-and-older crowd before it closed. Michael’s regulars aren’t getting any younger. But for now, let it remind us of the power, and the glory, that was.

Let us all remember and pay tribute to the power and glory of the power lunch, where rich old white guys slowly died of lung cancer and liver cirrhosis over $40 baked potatoes— before the Kardashians and those stupid "vegetables" and "greens" invaded the city like The Mongols and laid waste to our civilization.

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(via The New York Post)