Tavern news

A couple of days ago, The Telegraph had this on the front page: Last meal at NY’s Tavern on the Green.

And in spite of globalization and shrinking virtual worlds, I didn’t relate to this story. It is not as much as about the restaurant, as it is about the correspondent’s personal nostalgia about the biggies he met and the scoops he got there. Ho-hum.

Secondly, why is it on the front page? Yes, they could have been short of Page 1-ish stories, it being 1 Jan and all, but what about the story about 70 persons killed by a suicide bomber in neighbouring Pakistan? Maybe, bombings have become routine in Pakistan, but it’s still no excuse for the NY restaurant story to be prioritized. Oh, but then, maybe the enlightened editors at The Telegraph didn’t want to spoil the New Year cheer. Well, that’s understandable.

Thirdly, the story deals with the Tavern only superficially, and soon turns into a long-drawn treatise on why the correspondent thinks the recession in the US is far from over. The economy's impact on the restaurant definitely needed to be brought up in the story, but not at the cost of the story. There are no quotes from the restaurant regulars, the owners, in fact the entire story has no quotes at all. Neither is there any mention about how it looked on its last day, did they have anything special on the menu, nada.

And, we are still talking about a restaurant here.