A few short months ago, the lunch rush at Just Salad in Manhattan’s Hudson Square neighbourhood was a mob scene. On any given weekday around noon, throngs of office workers would peel themselves away from their spreadsheets, grab their brightly coloured reusable plastic bowls and trudge over to the restaurant to join a queue that snaked around the concrete floor and spilled out on to the street.
Last Friday, however, it was completely devoid of customers.
The scene is familiar across New York, especially in areas like Hudson Square and Midtown where offices far outnumber residences. Months after the government began easing the coronavirus lockdown, scores of “fast casual” eateries remain shuttered. The “sad desk lunch” that had become its own shorthand for the corporate drone's existence is now a distant memory, as company work-from-home policies keep most people from returning to the office.