How to Avoid Delays Opening Your New Restaurant

The sign in the window of the shuttered pizza parlor on the corner of my block thanked the community for its support over the years and spoke to the enjoyment the owners had in serving us. A rent increase that came with an expiring lease made maintaining a profitable business impossible and so they were reluctantly closing their doors.

It's not uncommon in my Manhattan neighborhood for a business to close because of rent increases, and this space stayed empty for a long time. Then one day there was activity. A new business was coming. Workmen. Dumpsters. Lumber. What's it going to be? The neighborhood buzz claimed it was a restaurant, but weeks went by and no restaurant was evident.

If my watching for this new restaurant were a movie, the movie would show the building through the passage of the seasons: people sloshing by in the snow, the arrival of spring, hot summer followed by the falling leaves. Or a film of calendar pages would work, too, where the months fall off one by one. Every so often there would be some activity, workmen inside, but then it would be abandoned for weeks. Is this place ever going to open?

By the beginning of last summer, some progress was evident. A banner was hung announcing, "Samalita's Coming Soon." I checked the Internet, and the restaurant had a Web site indicating it would open "no later than May 2007." It was now August 2007. Activity increased. Workers were there several days in a row. The outside was painted. Then an awning went up.

I went on summer vacation thinking surely Samalita's will be open when I return. It wasn't. One day I noticed there were tables and chairs inside, then nothing for a while. Weeks later, I saw a food truck parked out front, actually making a delivery. The restaurant -- Samalita's -- finally opened in October.