I spend more time in the city this summer than in years. I forgot how the city felt in the summer. The beat of the city and people watching is at an all-time high, and the vibe is quite casual, with lots of skin and there is the dew factor that creates a film on your skin, but the best part is the city isn’t that crowded and getting into restaurants isn’t that hard.

Last week I spent some time at Gotham. The dog program is pretty epic.

A highlight was dinner at Mimi. If anyone of you remember, Mimis opened years ago to rave reviews from two people who went on to open Horses in Los Angeles; regardless of what happened there, the place is fantastic. After the chefs moved on, Mimi’s continued onward with new chefs. The new chef is young, 22, and executing some good food.

He is a little heavy-handed, but the flavor profiles are smart. The menu changes daily. This tuna combo was delicious. The steak was buttery, yet the fries were fried perfectly, crispy yet soft and warm inside. The vibe feels a bit like Paris when Edith Piaf reigned. It is fun to be somewhere dining where this is a young chef finding his way.

I read about Sally Saul installation called People + Vases at Venus over Manhattan. I am such a huge fan of her work. Definitely worth a trip. Great show.

Went to the new Port Sa’id, which was very disappointing. The prices are not too high, the food comes quickly, the music is extremely loud, and the place is cavernous. Maybe I am not the customer. I am a huge fan of Miznon and Shmone. I had higher hopes for the tomato sourdough salad.

I am in and out in August, so new spots coming.

Alan Van Capelle is the Executive Director of the High Line. His energy and excitement about NYC make me excited every time we speak. He has dedicated his career to making an impact in NYC. I love talking to him.

Gotham Gives supports the High Line, one of the most impactful locations that has changed NYC in the last fifty years.

In the past week, I have been dealing with bank signatures. Dealing with banks is never fun. I am convinced they are all still operating on back-end systems built forty years ago. Considering how much money the banks have made in the past forty years, it is truly amazing.

This week, I had the “good” fortune of talking to the IT people. I also got the surveys they make you fill out to see if you are legit. If you have any privacy concerns, it is evident that there is none with the questions asked.

The questions run the gamut from asking about six addresses that you might have lived at in your life, people you know, and random things, but the most annoying question is what car you have essentially owned in your life.

Here is what I know about cars, they get me from one location to another. Sure, I have had some fun cars over the years. In high school, I had a completely falling apart 1961 Mustang convertible and our Honda mini-van when the kids were young. Yes, I loved my mini-van.

But ask me if I have any idea what year, what the “brand” name was of the car, I have zero idea. There are few women that I know who know cars. When I took Fred’s Rivian for a spin to get something, I chuckled to myself about how many men wanted to talk about the car or even noticed the car.

I do not want to be judgemental, but I find those questions masculine. I asked everyone in the Gotham office, and our conclusion was a rousing yes. My suggestion to the banks is that if they ever consider building their software, they might want to consider rethinking the questions they ask about our past, which are ones that any of us could quickly answer.

Years ago, I had a steel Lego block made the size of your hand that I gave to Fred that says on the side, “because we love to build things.” It defines us in many ways.

I am in the midst of building a business, Gotham and Gotham Goods, and I am having the best time. As with all start-ups, we have had some adjustments, such as upgrading my status from Founder to CEO. I have run and built other people’s businesses, but this opportunity capitalizes on everything I have learned and continue to learn.

All of this has made me reflect on where I am. There was a time a few years ago when I told myself I needed to do more of this or less of that. Spend more time being leisurely. After all these years, these small notes to self would suddenly be heard like a New Year’s resolution. You want to be something, but perhaps that is not who you are, so most don’t follow through. You must want to change, and I would prefer to become more self-aware.

Perhaps something about being in your 60s makes you more self-aware and accepting of yourself and others. What I am realizing is that I am very happy building.

We went to the second in the Spiderman series. The first one we really liked. The computer image graphics are amazing, and the storyline is just an updated original Spiderman. The second movie, Across the Spider-Verse. The imaging is incredible, and the film is quite long. I found myself getting frustrated with the storyline. So after 45 minutes, we dipped.

When our kids were younger and living under our roof, we learned so much about their generation. We still continue to work hard at listening and adapting. I pay attention to a new generation of kids, mostly younger vs teenagers. Just the age of our friend’s kids. We can all read and acknowledge each generation but sitting down with them is another ball game.

About a week ago, I had dinner at my sister’s house with our nieces, early 20s, and my sister’s friends’ kids in 7th and 10th grade. I asked them if they saw the new Spiderman and what they thought. They loved it. They asked me, and I noted a few things in the narrative that I had difficulty believing. It was about how kids talked about their emotions and feelings to each other at the band club.

They schooled me. They said that is how they are too. I can’t stop thinking about that conversation. It certainly speaks volumes about how they see the world. It confirms a big disconnect between the political nonsense in this country.

Note to self. Spend more time talking with pre-teens and teenagers.

It is a must if you have not seen this video from the “weed” party. I love the historical connection.

I am all about evolution in any brand, but sometimes some things shouldn’t change.

We read about restaurants that have lasted decades but, for whatever reason, could not read the landscape and evolve accordingly. Sometimes it is sad, but most of the time, these brands stop hitting the high notes for so many years that we tend to shake our heads and say, “Yes, it was time.”

There is something comforting about acknowledging those failures. We lament how we saw it coming as if we knew. We were those regulars who lost interest, lost faith, stopped going, and moved on.

Yet, there are those restaurants that bring comfort every time you walk in the door. You know what to expect, and they are still positively humming away. They do not need ever to change. What hurts is when ownership changes hands unexpectedly without anyone knowing, and they change what worked. However, we all saw it coming.

Out on the east end of Long Island, there is (was) an institution called the Clam Bar. I can’t tell you how often I have eaten there for all the tea in China, as they say. I always knew what to expect. We would sit under umbrella-covered tables with classic seafood beach food. We relied on our favorites, the clam chowder, the fried clam belly strips, and for me, the steamers. Always fresh, plump, and perfect.

Last summer, things started to change. The menu became laminated, and even though the chalkboard still existed, it was not the same. We had heard the Clam Bar had sold, but my guess was it sold last year, and after taking a look at what it cost and thinking they could run a better business, they changed the menu, relying on fried food from an outside vendor. They do not even carry the Dr. Browns Diet Cream Soda anymore. And the sails they swapped out for the umbrellas are filthy.

We didn’t believe it, so we went. The steamers were dry and inedible. They even apologized for how long it took and tried to give me another one, which was also inedible. The kitchen was an absolute shitshow, and the vibe had changed entirely.

The family that owned it made serious cash for decades; I guess it was time to depart. The next generation had no interest. What is sad is that someone came in and destroyed a money-making gem. They killed an institution. RIP, Clam Bar; I will never return.

This recipe is from Alison Roman, who is an impressive human. She gets what people want, how they want to cook, and how to entertain; she is Julia Child funny mixed with Ina Garten simple with a bit of an edge tossed into one. Her career has just begun.

I learned a few things from this recipe, do not realize that you do not have enough apricots to use a big pan and double the shortcake topping. The pro-move would have been a smaller pan so that the apricot would have been much tighter, but I was not in a pro-move headset. I will make this again with a smaller pan and not double the recipe, or if I do, double the number of apricots accordingly. Regardless, this is delicious.

• One ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup quick-cooking oats
• ¼ cup granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
• ½ cup unsalted butter (1 stick), cut into 1-inch pieces, chilled
• ½ cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing shortcakes
• Flaky sea salt for sprinkling

FOR THE FILLING:

• 2 pounds apricots, pitted and halved (or quartered if very large)
• ¼ cup honey
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime or lemon juice
• Pinch of kosher salt

Heat over to 350.

Combine the shortbread topping except for the cream. Add the cream in after everything else is mixed together. Here I did a pro-move: I grated the cold butter that, removes the effort of removing the chunks of butter.

Roll out the dough, and use a 2″ circle cookie cutter (a glass will suffice) to make round shortcakes.

Mix the apricots with the filling.

Put the apricots, cut side up, in an 8×11 or 9×13 pan, and pour the sauce left in the bowl over the top. Set the shortcakes on top, brush with cream, and sprinkle some sugar over the top.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the shortcakes are browned. Serve warm or at room temperature with ice cream of whipped cream.

So good!

Consumers are changing how they react to marketing. Consumers are willing to pay an annual fee to read good content; consumers will become “members” of restaurants, becoming part of a community; consumers are looking to be different, and Generation Z has zero loyalty.

The last decade of consumer company building, aka direct-to-consumer, taught us a lot. Particularly as we amplified marketing spend during Covid, many brands benefited until they didn’t, and that Covid high ended for many companies. The idea of spending as much capital as possible because money was cheap to acquire customers and build a consumer company as fast as possible never made sense to me. When you are running at that pace, you generally trip. That fall brings down a lot of people with you.

Social media tools have improved, so targeting is not as expensive as it used to be. Twitter has fallen into an abyss, Instagram is still an extremely powerful tool, Facebook not so much, and what happens with Threads is still unclear.

How does a company be clever about finding customers who want to be part of each company’s consumer experience without pouring money down a giant funnel? We are trying to be smart at Gotham in building our customer base and have people return for the experience and the product assortment.

Gotham is a merger of a store, cannabis products, and non-cannabis products that we also ship, including our private label line and events, with delivery on the horizon. It is a unique marketing opportunity that I am thinking about, and we are tossing a bunch of stuff on the wall. The one thing we are not going to do is spend thousands of dollars pushing ads.

I would love to hear from others on how they are thinking about marketing these days.

Multiple studies have shown that diversity works. It enhances critical thinking, working environments, creativity, collaboration, and acceptance. The only way to change our horribly undiverse past is through integration.

I thought that when diversity became a big buzzword around 2007, it was a step in the right direction. Schools and businesses began to hire diversity directors. Their role was to help hire a diverse staff and educate the employees and students about the importance of diversity. The desire to create change was there.

As women began to bust out as entrepreneurs and enter the new frontier of technology, we learned a lot. That women-led companies and diverse companies had higher success rates and were more profitable. Different thought processes around a table that comes from entirely different worlds create broadly. That happens to be a good thing for everyone.

I keep thinking about the Supreme Court ruling to strike down the need for affirmative action in the college admissions process. The long tail stifles the hiring process for companies, hurting minorities and women. Of course, some colleges will continue working on a diverse student body, but this further divides our country.

I keep asking why? I understand the long game played here, but what is to gain? As this country becomes more diverse, aka less white people, won’t all this be moot? I have a million questions because I want to understand the thought process behind this idiocy.

Maybe at the end of the day, it is only about one thing, fear—the fear of the unknown and the anger of not being in power, and that is hard to quantify. It just makes me very sad.