Anecdotally and in more formal proceedings both, requests for the Deathwatch have increased 10-fold since September. Predictable this, as we haven't seen times as bad as these, if evidenced only by prime time spot checks across town, in the restaurant business in many years. Notable restaurateurs are seeing funding for new projects dry up, the most seasoned guys in town are preparing to close underperformers, and instances of vendor check bouncing are skyrocketing. Good times, no? Eh, no, not really.
How the Deathwatch factors in here: we've called an emergency meeting of the Deathwatch Committee and have moved to suspend the Deathwatch until further notice (but absolutely not, no way no how, settle down haters, permanently). In its place, Eater will be bringing you at least two new features in the coming weeks, one of which we're going to call Rally Cry, which has you nominating restaurants we then collectively try to save.
The point is that we know that you know that we know that we're all in this together. We got no love for a scenario that has us with fewer great restaurants to savor, so here's us doing our part.
Your thoughts welcomed, too, via the comments. And now, back to our regularly scheduled, less nicey-nice programming.For more stories from Eater, go to eater.com.
