Why do so few top Boston restaurants serve lunch?

[ml77]

Maybe I'm spoiled because I've spent the past two years living in Manhattan, but I'm surprised at how few of Boston's upper tier restaurants are open for lunch. My wife and I will be returning for a brief visit on Friday (we lived in Boston for four years and left in 2005) and I've been researching a lunch option for us. It hasn't been as easy as I expected. Not only fine dining, but even more casual places like ICOB open only for dinner.

I think we're going to put our name in at Neptune and check out the new (to us) greenway while we wait, so we have a plan. But I was surprised that we didn't have more options.

I guess this is more of a comment than a question, but I'm curious if any of you Boston hounds have any thoughts/explanations. Are there really not enough diners to sustain a lunch business?

Thanks as always.

[BeachBum143]

Reactivating an old post, but for future reference, lunch is offered at Cafe Fleuri in the Langham Hotel. The BOND restaurant, also at the Langham, serves lunch.

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Cafe Fleuri
250 Franklin St., Boston, MA 02110

[Bellachefa]

I may be wrong but I think ICOB is related to Eastern Standard, so it would make sense that they would not open both in a competition to lunchtime foot traffic which is limited in that area during the day.

I am not surprised at all. NYC is home to a very large international business set as well as a much larger international tourist demographic that feeds the high end luncheon industry, before hitting the theatres for evening entertainment. For instance, it is impossible to fully enjoy a dinner at any high end restaurant and then rush off to the theatre. Both experiences would be challenged by trying to fit two big experiences into one.

Now, I would be interested to hear how Chicago fits in, as they are more a sister city, as San Fran is to Boston.

I think you will love the greenway. Boston just gets more and more beautiful. And the landscapers there and at Seaport have done an amazing job.

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Eastern Standard
528 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215

[robwat36]

In addition to those already mentioned, Via Matta, Bistro du Midi, Scampo, Aquitaine, Market, Oishii, Grotto, Eastern Standard, Sel de la Terre, Sportello, Coppa, B&G, Butcher Shop, and L'Espalier are a few examples of places convenient to downtown that serve weekday lunch. It's not actually all that uncommon.

[lifeasbinge]

GREAT question and something I have often wondered myself. In NYC, you can have a prix-fixe lunch at the very highest-end places, and have a great experience for relatively little money. Of large cities where I've traveled, Boston is by far the most difficult in which to eat well and reasonably. The exception - but it takes plenty of digging! - is ethnic cuisine. Don't get me wrong - I've had some wonderufl lunches in Boston, and some quite reasonable, but the upper-end places just don't seem interested.

[bella_sarda]

Radius does a nice prix fixe lunch, $29 for 3 courses, but you do have to have some time on your hands, so it's clearly not for everyone. I'd be curious to see how much money they make off of this.

[typhoonfish]

I wish the Franklin Southie served lunch. That would be our go to business lunch place.

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Franklin Southie
152 Dorchester Ave, Boston, MA 02127

[CocoDan]

The Pilgrims are still here, and none became hedge fund managers.
CocoDan

[Madrid]

try Toro. you can only get the burger at M-F lunch. I agree, ICOB not open for lunch is a problem...especially for parents who need to be home at dinner.

get to Neputine as soon as they open, and then you might need a nap afterwards. You will be amazed by the greenway, even though it's barely begun to live up to the promises.

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Toro
1704 Washington St, Boston, MA 02118

[ml77]

I'm not sure we'll get to neptune by 1130, but I figure we can put our name in and then hang out on the greenway til they're ready for us. That'll work, right?

Yeah, we're really interested to check out the greenway. It's probably old hat to locals now, but even looking at the area on google maps I can't believe how different it is from the dark and dingy area it was before.

[Madrid]

if you get down almost as far as the aquarium, there is a spray park with lots of happy kids jumping around. it's amazing how infectious the happiness is.....you probably aren't a fan of legal seafood, but the new one on the wharf where jimmy's haborside used to be has great views and they just opened their rooftop bar...it's really stunning that it took Boston so long to take advantage of the waterfront. The harbor islands were also barely mentioned when you lived here..

[hotoynoodle]

you can also try for a later time, after the lunch crowd is finished.

[MC Slim JB]

I thought this summary of why Locke-Ober dropped its long-running lunch service encapsulates a lot (paraphrasing): "Downtown businesspeople went from the elaborate three-martini lunch to a salad with a glass of white wine to eating a sandwich at their desk."

http://mcslimjb.blogspot.com/

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Locke-Ober
3 Winter Place, Boston, MA 02108

[Karl S]

Full-service luncheon in business Boston took two hits in the recession of the early 1990s (which hit Boston *far* worse than the current recession) and then the one a decade ago pretty nearly killed it.

[ml77]

Thanks for your thoughts. I kind of figured that the lack of business diners was probably the primary reason.

[Karl S]

Boston's dominant industries are not expense-account oriented, shall we say. It's always been a city that gets to work earlier than NY, gets its work done, and puts a lid on it. There's no sauntering in at 10AM, having lunch at 2, a dinner at 7, then back to work before leaving at 11 or 12. Even back in the late 80s, we were at our desks 3+ hrs earlier than our NY colleagues, compressed our meals, and left 4 hrs before they did. But they thought they worked harder because they worked "later". This dynamic spills over into T&E....

[robwat36]

Really? The financial sector is pretty big here. Everyone's using their big, black Chowhound Generalization Sharpie all over this increasingly bizarre thread.

[devilham]

@robwat36 ....funny!

[Karl S]

The banks are not headquartered here. Fewer insurance companies are. The big investment banks and broker-dealers are in NY. Mutual fund companies have always been comparatively stingy. Yes there are VC and hedge funds here, but the scale of business luncheons is much lower than it was in the mid-80s. They happen, just not on the scale; more and more, it's catered in if it happens, et cet.

[hotoynoodle]

fidelity, hancock and many white shoe law firms all are down in the "new" seaport district, and although those guys (a few gals) have generous expense accounts, they still tend to swing in for dinners, rather than lunches. it's a different corporate culture here, where people work through lunch for show and face-time.

it's simply not viable for many fine dining places to be open for lunch.

having been in fine-dining since the late 80's, that lunch-time ship, of 2-hour meals and cocktails, has long sailed.

[opinionatedchef]

karl, you and slim>> right on the money.

[emannths]

A few hypotheses. Please excuse the broad assumptions, but it's hard to address it any other way.

1) The areas where people work and where the restaurants are located overlap less. Or the midday population density of Boston is much less than Manhattan. Or both.

2) Fewer expense-account lunches.

3) Bostonians just aren't used to going to restaurants regularly. Either they're used to cooking at home, grabbing something from the House of Pizza, or maybe going to the oldest, starchiest restaurant for a special occasion. Checking off a new place isn't part of the equation.

4) More suburban commuters in Boston, and an earlier rush hour. It feels weird to have a 90 minute lunch at 12:30 when you head home at 5pm.

5) Restaurant industry differences. Even in Manhattan, there are some serious lunch discounts to get people in the door. There may be some structural difference that makes it reasonable for them to be open for lunch (e.g., some sunk cost) that may not apply in Boston to the same degree.

6) The restaurant culture is simply different. Look at the restaurant reviews in the NYT and the Globe. 'nough said.

There some top-flight restaurants open for lunch in Boston (No 9 Park and L'Espelier, I think, among others). Maybe you're just looking in the wrong neighborhoods.

[robwat36]

I realize you wrote yourself a blank check to generalize at the top of your post, but #3 is kind of dumb.

[emannths]

Well, maybe I phrased it poorly, and with a poor example. What I mean is that there are fewer Bostonians interested in seeking out restaurants than NYCer. Maybe it's a chicken-and-the-egg problem (no one's interested if there aren't that many good/exciting restaurants), maybe it's a simply population problem, but if people aren't spilling over into lunch because they can't get a seat at dinner, that's going to reduce the demand for lunch. Maybe simply calling it "regional dining culture and habits" without delving into the even-murkier details would help?

You're right though--it's pretty flimsy. I was more throwing these out there as ideas to see what would stick. Guess that one doesn't!

[robwat36]

It just runs directly counter to the easily verifiable reality of heavily hyped new places (Island Creek, Lolita, Bondir, Foundry on Elm, anything on Liberty Wharf) being tough to get into as soon as they open. Remember how difficult it was to snag a table at Coppa within its first weeks?

I think the lack of weekday lunch has much more to do, as others have noted, with the death of the business lunch.

[ml77]

As far as I can tell, No 9 Park only serves dinner.

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No 9 Park
9 Park Street, Boston, MA 02108

[emannths]

Looks like it's holiday season only now. It used to be an good restaurant week deal.