HaSalon

Ha Salon has brought Israel to NYC. I remember being in Jerusalem and going to Mahneyuda It is a combination of food and an ongoing party. The music was blaring, people were dancing and food was being served. Israeli’s tend to work hard and play hard and the truth is so do NYers so HaSalon is certainly on to something.

We went to the opening night so the insanity of the evening makes it tough to comment on the food, service because it takes time to get the rhythm down. Yet the food is quite good. The huge pizza oven cooks everything from whole chickens to flat breads to skewers of lamb. It is a Mediterranean menu of goodness.

The music is super loud and at one point most people begin to dance and sing along once drinks begin to flow. Our waiter was getting into the groove. They plan on sticking to the food/disco theme a few times a week. It is a place to go with really great friends.

If you are hoping to go, the resy’s are backed up until September (so they say) although there is a bar in the front for people to stop-in and try out a few things. If you aren’t one for a full on party experience, definitely consider asking which nights are the party nights before making that resy.

I honestly can hardly wait to go back.

Comments (Archived):

  1. jason wright

    So they say.It reminds me of the Camp Nou. It’s completely sold out for every match, but is on average only ever 70% full. Inexplicable. I think someone is having us on.

  2. LE

    the resy’s are backed up until September (so they say)Why isn’t there isn’t a restaurant that is popular enough and has the guts to hold back some reservations and then make them available for a premium cost? The only reason it’s not being done now (if it is I have never heard about it) is lack of social proof ie ‘restaurants don’t do that’. Yet in other situations (entertainment, travel, plumber on the weekend) it’s done all the time. You can book in advance but also there are seats or rooms which you can pay extra for generally. Now people would think this isn’t fair (but honestly who cares?) but it actually is. It allows the restaurant to be profitable and offsets the price (in theory) that other diners would pay in times the restaurant is slow.I am thinking that some enterprising college student could actually arbitrage this. Make reservations in September and then resell them the week before for a profit. Not like restaurants check your ID when dining, right? Even if a deposit is required so what? (That is legally dubious anyway..)The key to the idea is making sure it’s setup in a way to minimize the whining and maximize the PR (all pr is good) that the restaurant gets for doing this.

    1. Digital Noizeee

      Yum ?

  3. awaldstein

    Booked for July.Thanks!

  4. Pointsandfigures

    hope they are using exploretock.com for reservations. really great experience

    1. LE

      I had never heard of tock so I just checked it out based on your comment. They have a really big mountain to climb in reservations even with a better product and I guess lower overall fees than presumably opentable. In my city there are only 5 restaurants currently. [1] Even in NY there are only a handful. The one restaurant I spot checked (pretty well known) is no longer on open table. So you can only use one system obviously at a time.How will they solve the chicken and egg with this one? The website ) tock.com is not friendly towards diners. Presumably because they are focused on signing up restaurants. I had to think to even see what restaurants are there. Open table a bit different they invented the market. Not the same chicken and egg at all. One other thing I could care less (as the customer) what the restaurant is paying in fees and whatever they are getting out a better product. I just want to know where I will dine in the evening if we want to go out. Nothing else matters to me or most diners (most diners are not Joanne…)For this company my idea would be to essentially give away the $199 product for 2 years to an initial group of restaurants that sign up to give you critical mass. So $199 *12 *1000 = $2.4m per year cost (per 1000 restaurants decide how many you need). Maybe they are already doing that and cutting deals off the rack rate. Not a new idea. I do it with rent and it’s a great way to insure revenue down the road and remove doubt (and I am talking higher rent than would be expected).[1] You of course know why people buy at Amazon. Not best products not even lowest prices but ‘they have what I need and it’s good enough’. Hence even if B&H might be better for photography than Amazon you are ‘passing by’ Amazon every single day so it’s front and center in your mind.[2] Back in the day with an advertising book that I was involved in (coupons at colleges worked very well) my big fear was that someone could easily come along and steal all of our advertisers by just giving away a year’s worth of ads that we were charging for.