Publishing's New York Lunchroom Turns 25

Union Square Cafe celebrates a quarter century
By Lynn Andriani, Oublishers Weekly, Nov 01, 2010

One day in November 1985, a man wearing an ascot walked into the just-opened Union Square Cafe on East 16th Street in New York City. He said to the restaurant's owner, Danny Meyer, in an accent Meyer describes as "inimitable," "I hear you have oysters." And so began Farrar, Straus & Giroux cofounder Roger Straus's patronage of the restaurant that has become downtown's go-to hub for publishing lunches.

"The very good fortune we had way back at the beginning that a small handful of publishers adopted Union Square Cafe as their lunch club has stood us in incredible stead all these years later," Meyer says. Among the publishing legends who've been regulars at USC besides Straus (whose office was less than a block away) are Abrams's former publisher and editor-in-chief Paul Gottlieb, Knopf v-p and editor-at-large Gary Fisketjon, and Grove/Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin.

Literary agent Mary Evans, who got her start at FSG in 1974, remembers when the restaurant was a health food store called Brownie's. "It's hard for people to understand how few lunch places there were in the neighborhood," she says, recalling only two options for the house's editors: Lüchow's, where she says a rat once ran over Straus's foot, and an Armenian restaurant called the Dardanelles on University Place. When Union Square Cafe opened, it gave publishers in the area a much-needed option.

Another agent, David Black, eats at USC at least once a week. Why? "Because the food is good, it is comfortable, and there is plenty of distance between tables so I can conduct business in an atmosphere I would describe as informal yet elegant." And, he adds, "in a business where it feels like you eat for a living, the menu is varied and healthy, if you choose." Deals are often made at the restaurant; Evans says she once had a lunch there, talked about a project, "and by that afternoon I had a well-into-the-six-figures pre-empt." And Norton executive editor Bob Weil has recently made a tradition of taking an author to USC to celebrate signing up a book.

The full story at PW.