Fifi!!!

To be fair, the Vietnamese aren't exactly exaggerating. Besides Canada, what other country can say they beat both the USA and France in separate ground wars?

Wow!

Oh for sure, that's an entirely different experience than meeting up for an early bird to enjoy their standard cafeteria fare

Dinner at the National Aquarium

A vacancy tax might be easier to implement on a local level. But I love where your head's at

The cost of commercial leases have gone through the roof across the city and have only gotten worse since the pandemic shutdown.

I've been actively looking for a new location for our studio and it is absolutely unreal how many of the spaces we looked at in 2015 and 2018 have remained vacant, but are suddenly somehow 2x - 5x the cost.

Another big issue many businesses have been dealing with lately are the consequences of deferment arrangements they made with landlords during the pandemic.

In most commercial leases, rent automatically escalates when you're in breach (ie the entirety of your lease is immediately due, often at a premium). Which in itself isn't normally an issue if you pay your bills, but these deferment agreements often contain stipulations guaranteeing they remain tenants until the deferments are repaid, effectively committing tenants to (usually quasi-punitive) overstay terms or blindsiding them with TBD market rate renewals. That combo can incentive LLs with larger multi-property portfolios to force tenants into bankruptcy.

I'm not a lawyer or tax expert, but just to relay how it was explained to me by two business owners that were forced to close recently...

Say you've been on a 5 year term at $2,500 a month ($30k a year) and your rent was deferred for 6 months. You agree to pay that $15k back over 30mos as a manageable extra $500 a mo. Business returns mostly back to normal and you manage to pay the $3k as agreed. Things are tight, but doable. At least, until your lease comes up for renewal.

Suddenly rent is 2x the cost and now you're paying $5.5k - maybe even have to put down an additional $2.5k, just so your deposit equals a months rent. But you don't have $8k laying around, so you have no choice but to close.

But remember, not only is the back rent of $15k due, the remainder of the now $5k a mo 5 year lease you were forced into just escalated. Meaning, you now owe your LL $300k plus interest / fees / legal costs incurred from collection. At which point, you have no choice but to go into bankruptcy and your LL can then write off the bad debt against whatever they would otherwise owe in capital gains.

Considering by most accounts we're nearing the end of a massive real estate bubble, now isn't exactly the worst time to sell property. And if your immediate plans are to cash out, losing $30k in speculative revenue to save $300k in taxes is a no brainer for some.

TLDR: Commercial landlords with larger portfolios can often net more forcing restaurants out of business than from collecting rent

Call Xfinity. Request the solutions department. Tell them you were thinking of switching to T-Mobile 5G and heard they are lowering bills for existing customers in the neighborhood to $25 to get them to stay.

Be sure to mention your Hampden neighbors are receiving that specific offer, or they'll likely default to saying they don't have any offers available.

TLDR You could be paying less for the same service

Your loss, man. Their food is awesome.

Bmore Taqueria

I don't know when it changed, but the mouthfeel now is completely different from what it was back in the late 90's.

BoPs pizza used to have what looked like course cornstarch on the bottom that gave it a crunchy, almost gritty texture. Without it the doughiness of the crust is more pronounced.

They also used to have hot sauce at the tables, which went a long way towards softening the sweetness of their sauce.

If that's supposed to be 95, my guess is the ramp leads to some kind of arena or stadium? But if that's an extension of 83 / President St. there's no telling what kind of Atlas restaurant it might be