Going
Going
Gone
Barney’s New York
The Pressmans’ legacy
Once the place where we out of towners went to figure out what the cool kids were wearing
Over the years, our stops in the flagship store on Madison have felt more and more like out of body experiences than high touch, high end, exclusive retail
“Um, who in the world would wear that?”
“What is the matter with Barney’s?”
“This is not the store we knew”
“Who’s gonna pay for that?”
The press announced with no small amount of schadenfreude that it’s all a thing of the past
A great shopping experience
Cutting edge clothes
Beautiful space
Concierge service
Gone
Over
Finished
Which brings us to the subject at hand, our meal at Fred’s in the City
We love Fred’s at Barney’s
Clever play on the Flintstones
Brightly lit space on the Ninth Floor
We went there the day after Thanksgiving a few years ago
Place was jammed packed
We went there with just we four a few Saturdays ago on our trip to NYC
The eight floors below seemed empty
The concierge smiled as we entered off Madison
But everything else in the store was dead
Dead
Especially the mens’ department
I guess my Barney’s brand ties are now collectors’ items
We looked at some items before our 1 p.m. reservation
I swanny
No one was in Barney’s
No one
It used to always be packed
We took the elevator to the Ninth Floor, and, on exiting, it was like nothing had changed….felt just like 2012
Wait?
That’s nostalgia?
Seven years ago?
The brightly lit space
The waiters in constant motion
The hostesses being gracious yet firm
“Just a moment, Sir, your table will be ready”
The foursomes who eat there every Saturday
The table of a famous actress in the corner
The well turned out NYC family with disaffected daughter and son constantly on their phones
Us
The London family whose table backed up to ours
The little lady who seemed lost until the waiter approached. She grabbed him by the arm and said, “Oh, thank God. Jose! It’s you. Where’s Walter?”
“Your husband is this way…..”
We sat in a booth facing the windows
Lobster bisque
Caesar salads
Lentil soup
Frittes for the table
Always frittes for the table
The two ladies from New Jersey with their daughters
“I can’t believe this is all going away”
“Drink your Bloody. May be the last one”
It felt so clubby
And bright
And familiar
The food was never going to knock the socks off of its patrons
But, it was always good
And reliable
For a chain in a department store
The announcement some five days later that there would now be pop-ups and instagrammable events in the store makes our meal there seem like some glorious invocation of the past
A recent past
Something so sad about the great temple of commerce going away
Something so comforting about our meal at Fred’s
Always so comforting
The lentil soup special that day pleased our eldest
Huge chunks of lobster in the bisque
The bread basket teeming and ready to be dragged through olive oil
So last century
So damned good
All I could think as I read the news about Barney’s demise was that I was glad we were there for one last luncheon
In light of the lentil soup special that day, I also thought there was something Biblical in the announcement that 660 Madison would soon be gone
Jacob and Easau
Selling off the Pressmans’ birthright for metaphorical bowls of lentil soup
Barney’s CEO stated that her entire industry is in survival mode
High rents
Lower sales
Online and direct sales increasing
But, oh, that lobster bisque
We’ll miss you Fred’s and Barney’s
Yabba dabba doo
Dad, what's for supper? 