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José Andrés Caught Up in the Donald Trump Maelstrom


DaveO

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22 hours ago, dcs said:

This story says the bar in the atrium will serve wine by the spoon.  If this is true it is among the more preposterous ideas I have ever heard.

This can't be true. I've heard of Coke spoons; not wine spoons.

If it is, it ranks right up there with ADNY offering their diners a "selection of luxury pens with which to sign the check." I swear to God they did - they brought out a box, opened it, and there was an assortment of expensive pens inside that you could choose from to sign your bill with!

I *thought* that was the dumbest idea I'd ever heard until I heard this one.

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17 hours ago, DonRocks said:

This can't be true. I've heard of Coke spoons; not wine spoons.

When I read this and tried to figure out how that would even work, I thought maybe they are planning on serving flights of small tastes from very expensive bottles, but "spoons" is an odd choice of serving medium.  And now all I can think of is people trying to take their $20 sips of grand cru out of these and spilling it down the front of their shirts!

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48 minutes ago, TedE said:

When I read this and tried to figure out how that would even work, I thought maybe they are planning on serving flights of small tastes from very expensive bottles, but "spoons" is an odd choice of serving medium.  And now all I can think of is people trying to take their $20 sips of grand cru out of these and spilling it down the front of their shirts!

Why not nice crystal shot glasses? I mean, if you're going to do something like this, don't make it so pretentious that everybody would be embarrassed to order it. With a spoon, the bouquet of the wine doesn't get trapped, and disperses into the surrounding atmosphere, so you lose half of the benefits right off the bat.

I've had one-ounce pours of wine before, and you really *can* get a good idea of what the wine is like. In fact, Riedel even made specialized glasses for such a concept:

311tzyYIEoL._SY300_.jpg<--- What is wrong with this (other than being similar to viewing the Mona Lisa for five seconds)?

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5 minutes ago, dcs said:

$750 a night hotel rooms and people drinking wine out of spoons that they could not otherwise afford are troubling signs for our civilization, in my opinion.  Is this really the sum of our aspirations?  I sense doom.....

When the press touts $750 hotel rooms, the public will think it's a "bargain" when they get one for $400 - this is all marketing. 

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36 minutes ago, Mark Slater said:

Washingtonian just published an article describing the crystal spoon service. $140 an ounce for 2007 Royal Tokaji Company Essencia. 

Retails for ~$600 or $50 per ounce - retail.  Nice mark up.  I'm assuming Coravin is de rigeur on a bottle like that at 12 pours per bottle.

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...and still more current examples where the Trump language and statements are currently subverting business:   Trump hotel has vacancies during busy IMF meetings

While other hotels were raising rates, Trump's hotel was discounting vacant rooms.   I'm not an attorney and don't know the law on this case or precedent.  There might not be precedent, or certainly not at this level.  Trump's mouth sabotaged the business opportunities of the two restaurants.  They were smart to pull out.  Outside of these two cases the question down the line might be has he sabotaged the very operations of the hotel?   Time will tell.  But there is a lot of debt on that hotel, there are a lot of vacancies in rooms and an old adage connected to the real estate business is "debt never sleeps".  

The clock is ticking.

 

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1 hour ago, DaveO said:

...and still more current examples where the Trump language and statements are currently subverting business:   Trump hotel has vacancies during busy IMF meetings

- - - - -

 Outside of these two cases the question down the line might be has he sabotaged the very operations of the hotel?  

I posted this in some other thread, but it's worth repeating in light of Dave's comments.  Mother Jones did a story wondering whether the hotel might be a financial flop because of the price he bid ($60M more than the next bidder), the rent he has to pay GSA ($3M per year, plus a share of the profits), and the average room rate to cover expenses ($750 a night!).  And this article came out in early September!  There have been approximately 8,391 major Trump scandals since then.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/donald-trumps-old-post-office-hotel-financial-flop

Here's an excerpt:

In 2011, when Trump submitted the winning bid to lease and renovate the historic building, which is owned by the federal government, at least one rival bidder expressed surprise regarding the terms of Trump's offer. Trump proposed a lavish rehab estimated to cost at least $60 million more than other bidders. He also offered the government generous financial terms, under which the Trump Organization would pay annual rent of $3 million, plus a cut of any profits. In a protest filed with the General Services Administration, the government agency overseeing the project, lawyers for a competing development team noted that in order to make the hotel financially viable, Trump would have to charge some of the highest room rates in the city.

"A properly conducted price reasonableness analysis would have resulted in the conclusion that the minimum base lease proposed by Trump would require Trump to obtain hotel room revenues which are simply not obtainable in this location based on the concepts for the redevelopment," the lawyers asserted.

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Not to not answer Eric's question.  I don't know.  But a thought I have been having: I would think this is a really strange suit to carry on, as Trump will breach his lease with GSA if he or the Trump organization continues to own the property.  Although I am not sure they can unilaterally terminate the lease, if he is in breach- I think they have to.  At this point, I don't think there is any way they can prove any damages, anyway, the hotel seems to be making plenty of money.  And I don't think the damages would apply to any new leasee?  Although it doesn't seem like Trump is going to let go of his lease, that should be interesting.

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On 12/13/2016 at 6:02 PM, thistle said:

"José Andrés to Trump: Let's End This Legal Beef with Donation to Vets" by Louis Nelson on politico.com

at least someone's taking the high road...

It's not the high road.  Jose's gonna get whacked, if not on the law then on the facts.  Jose is not a smart man.  He wanted to make a political statement but he didn't count on Trump getting elected.  Now he's shitting bricks.  Notice he didn't make the overture until Trump was elected.

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6 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

It's not the high road.  Jose's gonna get whacked, if not on the law then on the facts.  Jose is not a smart man.  He wanted to make a political statement but he didn't count on Trump getting elected.  Now he's shitting bricks.  Notice he didn't make the overture until Trump was elected.

Is it Opposite Day?

 

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On 4/7/2017 at 0:30 PM, Ericandblueboy said:

Case settled, terms not disclosed (per Wapo).  Now we'll never know whether a tenant can breach a lease based on the landlord's political views (unless the Zakarian case goes to trial).

I don't believe the case stood on "breach a lease based on the landord's poltical views" at all.   I think Trump's position his comments, his status elevated the situation so far far far far beyond a landlord's political views that it isn't even close.  (btw:  I leased space to tenants that were so dramatically on the right and so dramatically on the left that it in some of the cases it put them to what I would describe as extremes of extremes.).   Issues of politics never arose with regard to the leases..  In some of the cases I had conversations with the respective landlords and they were at opposite ends of the political spectrum than the tenants.   THERE WAS NEVER AN ISSUE about a "landord's political views"   I can't think of a situation that approximates the Trump situation vis a vis a lease.  If you have any...lets flush them out.

I think the issue went way beyond that.  Regardless.  All is moot.  Cases resolved and we don't know anything about a possible court reaction.

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