THE BIG LIE ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS THAT REPRESENT SMALL BUSINESSES IN NEW YORK.
Walk a few blocks in any borough and you start wondering something nobody ever asks out loud: who actually speaks for New York’s small businesses?
Not the idea of “small business,” the real ones. The people running on fumes. The storefronts held together by family labor. The micro-shops that don’t have time for panels, programs, or newsletters because they’re trying to survive another unpredictable week.
If most of these owners can’t name a single organization that claims to represent them, is that a gap in outreach… or a gap in reality? If the loudest voices in the room look nothing like the people keeping the city’s commercial strips alive, what does that say about the room? And if over 85–90 percent of operators are never surveyed, never present, never part of the conversation, then what exactly are we calling “representation”?
Maybe the issue isn’t who’s talking.
Maybe it’s who isn’t.
THE DOMINICANS DIDN’T JUST CHANGE NYC FOODTHEY TURNED THE WHOLE CITY INTO ONE BIG CAJA CHINA
Dominicans didn’t “influence” New York. They rebuilt its appetite, rewired its flavor logic, and dragged this city out of the beige-bowl era by force.
I didn’t fall in love with Dominican food through a dish. I fell in love through a room. Fifteen years ago I walked into a spot in Washington Heights and the whole place felt alive in a way New York rarely lets itself be anymore. Music too loud, jokes flying, half the room arguing about baseball, and a waitress who called me “papi” before deciding whether I deserved a table. That energy hooked me. The food sealed it. Dominican food isn’t a meal. It’s a vibe, a community, a pulse.
STUFF WE REALLY CARE ABOUT LATELY
I FUCKING MISS ANTHONY BOURDAIN: Not the TV host. Not the celebrity chef. The New Yorker who understood this city better than half the people running it. Bourdain didn’t chase the shiny stuff. He didn’t care about the new “concept” on a block that used to feed families for generations. He cared about the people sweating behind the stove, the grandmother cooking on a burner older than the building, the immigrant vendor hustling to pay rent, the quiet genius behind a counter nobody ever wrote up.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REAL BODEGA SANDWICH? We love the myth of the bodega sandwich. Foil-wrapped, messy, melty, and made by a guy behind the counter who knows your face. But lately? Some “elevated” versions feel like someone filmed a recipe on the F train and went viral. $15 artisanal hero? Please. Where’s the slop, the sloppy cheese, the unpretentious magic?
STOP ORDERING LIKE A TOURIST AT KATZ’S
Skip the $28 hype slice and eat Katz’s the way the cutters, the old-timers, and the real New Yorkers actually do.
Most people walk into Katz’s like they’re entering a museum. They queue up, clutch their ticket, point at the pastrami, and walk out twenty-eight dollars lighter believing they unlocked some New York rite of passage. They didn’t. They ordered the same hype slice every tourist orders and missed the move that the cutters, the lifers, and the neighborhood regulars actually respect.
Katz’s has a secret hierarchy. There’s the menu for visitors, then there’s the menu inside the cutter’s head. The real play isn’t the photogenic pastrami tower. It’s the thing that never goes viral because the people who order it don’t need the internet’s approval.
— Leila Molitor
BEST SH!T THIS WEEK. A GUIDE. SORTA…
REAL MONDAY THINGS
1. City says it’s “cutting red tape,” finally touches inspections: Mayor Adams’ Small Business Forward 2.0 claims NYC has already saved small businesses over $50 million in fines and fees since 2022, with new restaurant inspection reforms meant to “limit disruption” and a Future Fund loan program building on $300M in affordable financing.
2. Minority-owned businesses still fighting for a real seat at the table: Ahead of Small Business Saturday, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams released a “Diverse Entrepreneurial Inclusion” report calling out gaps in city contracting and underuse of M/WBE firms, warning that national backlash against DEI programs is already making it harder for minority-owned NYC businesses to compete for public dollars.
3. New York really is the coffee capital now: A 2025 breakdown counts 1,744 coffee shops and 956 cafés across the five boroughs, including around 1,571 specialty cafés. That gives NYC the highest density of coffee shops in the U.S., ahead of Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco — chains and independents combined.
4. Bed-Stuy’s newest daytime spot is already getting attention: Barker Cafeteria, a new café at 395 Nostrand Ave in Bed-Stuy, is pulling food people across the city with house-made focaccia sandwiches, tartiflette, and roast beef. The owners cooked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns before opening this deeply personal, prep-heavy daytime spot.
5. Raising Cane’s keeps pushing into New York territory: After opening a high-profile Times Square location, Raising Cane’s is taking over a shuttered McDonald’s in Commack, Long Island, marking its first LI site, with more locations under review in Carle Place and Farmingdale, and a target opening in late 2026.
