Melanie Martinez in front of the newly reopened State Grill
Posted by: Noel Jones
Good news for Easton diners--The State Grill, which has been closed for well over a year, if not two, has reopened under the management of new owners Juan and Melanie Martinez. The menu features American fare "with a cosmopolitan twist," including a selection of burgers and sandwiches at $7.95 that come with spicy or beer-battered fries, salads starting at $4.95, as well as full entrees. The kitchen stays open until 10pm and David and I managed to skate in just under the deadline the other night for a late bite. I had the grilled salmon w/fresh thyme roasted shallot butter, rice and cucumber salad, and it was really good. David is a burger fan, and said his burger was great, but he was especially taken with the beer-battered fries. I had
stopped in w/friends the Saturday before, when I tried the Caesar salad and was excited to find that they make a real caesar dressing there, for all you Caesar fans. For vegetarians there is the portobello vegetable sandwich, grilled cheese sandwich, ravioli primavera, and various appetizers. For vegans they have--aside from the selection of salads--soup of the day, fresh guacamole w/tortilla chips and of course, the beer-battered fries (I'm sure you could also order the portobello sandwich w/o the spinach ricotta...)--and alcohol.
Juan and Melanie were surprised to get their liquor license ahead of schedule and now serve a full bar, in addition to wine and beer. When I was there, I asked Juan if they were planning on serving bloody Marys for those of us who miss the ones that the old State Grill used to serve. I got an email yesterday from Juan that the bar is now serving one, and I intend to try it out very soon!
The community-minded among you will be glad to know that the restaurant donates a percentage of their net income to charities such as the Nicole Reppert Foundation.
Please stop by to welcome them to the neighborhood, and try the menu and bar--it's great to have another restaurant open nearby! They are located on S. 5th Street between Northampton and Ferry.
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I'm hoping they are properly marketed to the public and the word-of-mouth spreads quickly. Anyone willing to take on a new local enterprize under the current economic climate is to be commended. If the food and service is good they deserve our support.
In case you missed my rant at the Planning Commission meeting this week (The E-T covered the meeting yesterday and a letter from the owner of Cosmic Cup in support of my position was on today's editorial page) I took exception to the approval of yet another Dunkin Donuts on Southside to serve commuters. Now we can have more dopes pulling out of the drive-thru with hot coffee cups between their legs as they speed through Southside.
I'm not at all in favor of the idea that tourism, more parking and national chain retail is going to save Easton. We better get a clue.
DRL
I may understand your thoughts about national franchises although I disagree, I cannot understand your thougths about tourism. Cities all over the US with much less to offer than us, have made a sustainable economy out of tourism. Easton has sooooo muchto offer. I work in the downtown area (a local business not franchise) and it is refreshing to talk to visitors who constantly speak about the beauty and cleanliness of our city.
Anon@3:12...
There isn't anything wrong with tourism. You simply can't build your local economy around it. Like the arts and restaurant scene, it is a trimming, not a main coarse. It has been popular in Easton for the past decade to believe that the future will simply be like the past except just more of it.
Crayola and similar attractions have given us the false impression that day-trippers (overwhelmingly arriving by car) will take the place of innovating and producing actual goods that can be exported for actual customers to buy. This is the true nature of a sustainable economy.
We are living in an era of diminishing energy supplies, rising costs and probably uncertain access. Fuel costs will soon trump travel choices. If we are short-sighted and delusional enough to think that people will continue to take discretionary day trips under those conditions to watch crayons being made we need a slap upside the head to clear the cobwebs.
Everyone understands the Downtown's importance and wants it to thrive - including me. But the city's WHOLE economy has to be about more than retail, services and entertainment. We are severely unbalanced in that regard.
DRL
I don't understand the objection to Dunkin. I, too, do not care for their product. But, Dunkin is a franchise operation and the local stores are owned by independent businessmen. In fact, franchise operations are becoming more and more the rule. Maybe Easton needs a better variety instead of the same old stores. I would not define these operatons as a national chain unless they are owned by a national or regional organization. When you say national chain, I think of CVS, Borders, THe Sports Authority, etc. Franchises still qualify as small businesses; ask their owners.
Starbucks is a national chain. They do not offer franchise opportunities.
Would you have objected to Starbucks?
Places like Altantic City and New Hope have their locally owned restaurants and businesses that are known to those in the suburbs. Easton can make that happen too. We just need the restaurants and stores in Easton to market themselves outside of the area. Advertise in Philadelphia's Entertainment Book rather than solely in the Lehigh Valley Entertainment Book. Advertise Easton's Restaurant Week in the suburbs and Philadelphia and not just in the Lehigh Valley. If the restaurants and stores in any small town or city made their name known to those outside of their normal customer base, franchises would not have to come there. My favorite thing to do when visiting a new area is to go into a local store and ask where I should go to grab lunch.
I don;t think you understand my point. If you want to go into business for yourself, you have money to invest and you have a particular interest, going with a franchise may be the best and easiest investment that you can make limiting your chances for failure. Good franchise opportunities provide a lot of services and support that you would not normally have if you attempted to establish a business on your own. It's not really franchises coming here, it is local people desiring to invest in them instead of opening their own businesses. My point was that we are confusing franchise investments with national chain operations.
Franchises are a great vehicle to go into business for yourself if you lack creativity and business sense... A true entreprenuer builds franchises instead of paying a hefty fee to buy a business model that hopefully will succeed...
Someone who seeks to own a franchise needs creativity and business sense to survive. Franchises do not stifle creativity. Have you ever had a "Big Mac". It was developed by a McDonald's franchise owner. In fact you will find McDonalds selling lobster sandwiches in the northeast, kosher hot doges in jewish neighborhoods and "hot seasoned" burgers in cajun Louisiana.
Franchising is a difficult concept to understand. Take real estate franchises. Century 21 does not want start-up offices. They are looking for established brokers unable to move to the next level of business development. To understand that you need to understand the stages of business development.
We think of franchises as fast food. It's more complex than that. Dunkin has eight types of franchises. McDonalds is concerned with economies of scale, production time, consumer demand. These are often too sophisticated concepts for even the best of business sense.
To all the franchise and chain defenders...
If you clear away the rhetoric about what is and isn't an "entrepreneurial opportunty" or an "independent business owner" you still have some basic economic realities to deal with that can't be so easily explained away. These have to do with the affects of chain/franchise business models on decision making, local reinvestment, community building and self-governance. I will work on a post for the near future explaining the things that have been lost in local communities by embracing franchises and chain retail.
DRL
I look forward to that post because it's an interesting discussion, the difference between franchises and chain stores...
Chain stores vs. franchises? Does it really matter? Is it better to have the properties vacant, or developed? And why are people who go through the drive-thru considered dopes? And do they all put coffee between their legs and speed off?
Did you consider that maybe the people on the Southside don't want to do downtown or to thirteenth St? Maybe they welcome another Dunkin Donuts. Did you take the time to survey residents on the Southside, or don't the people on the Southside count?
the "anything is better than empty" philosophy can hurt a city w/vacancies in that you end up with a center square that has a pawn shop on one corner, a dollar store and a mcdonald's on another, and a dunkin donuts on another. not everyone agrees, but i do feel that it's important to protect the character of our city and our small private businesses so that when people drive through, we don't just look like everyone else--or worse--desperate.
in general, i do not see a lot of programs encouraging entrepreneurship in easton, which i really think we need more of here. there are plenty of programs with handouts, but not a lot teaching people HOW they can create a product and a business independently (as opposed to giving out grants and loans to those who already have a business plan). I did hear the other day though that Lehigh offers classes in how to start a small business, but still need to verify this...can anyone confirm the Lehigh classes? or do you know of anyone else offering free classes to the community on how to start their own businesses?
there used to be businesses on almost every corner of the West Ward...now there are very few. people used to figure out what they had to offer, and they offered it, sustaining themselves. we always hear about the need for jobs, jobs, jobs, and who will and won't create jobs for Americans but what about encouraging people to create their own jobs?
Where i think the discussion is off base is this condemnation of franchises. If I want to open an ink cartridge business at 10th and Northampton and go with a franchise, I am being told I am unwanted. That just does not make any sense.
I think that someone does not understand that many of the businesses that left this city were franchise operations. At one time there were 20 gas stations in Easton-all franchise operations. Today, there is only one, maybe two.
When I was a kid, I used to get Ice Cream at a place called Hershey's on College Hill. I always thought it belonged to the two old people that were there. Then, I found out in later life that it was a franchise through the Hershey Ice Cream Company, part of the candy maker. Stop dissing franchises. They are everywhere and employ a lot of people including MOms and Pops.
i think most people, when they say Mom & Pop, are talking about entrepreneurs who started their own businesses, but i'm not arguing with your franchising point--it's an interesting point for discussion, and, i guess, depends on how the community feels about the parent company to which the franchise is affiliated and the product they sell.
i think the main protest against too many stores like dunkin donuts, for example, is that dunkin is the same whether you are in oregon, chicago or easton. there is nothing unique or of character about another dunkin.
i have heard that in vermont, residents voted to keep all chain stores out of their state to preserve it's character and support local farmers and entrepreneurs, and they are doing fine. but people in PA have very different priorities than people in VT. now i'm wondering if keeping all chain stores out also means all franchises? does anyone know?
i also hear they have a no-billboard law--because people felt it made their roads and towns look trashy. so, they wrote it up and voted it in. one thing you gotta admire about folks in VT is that, whether you agree with them or not, they have a citizenry that is informed and engaged enough in their local political process to actually take action and design their community the way they want it to be, rather than sitting back and complaining, which seems chronic around in PA...Vermonters seem to know that our government really is "of the people, for the people, by the people" if the people get involved and make it so. we live in such a consumerist society these days that the average American is accustomed to CONSUMING rather than MAKING SOMETHING or MAKING SOMETHING HAPPEN...that goes for consuming our politics and our urban planning as well...
They are called "formula retail zones" established to protect businesses. They are under fire now and the guess is the supreme court will not uphold them. I can see if you have a tourist attraction and the attraction is built on an ethnic group that you would want to restrict businesses to only those that reflected that culture. But, I don't know how, if you have a commercial zone, that you can keep out a business.
Anon 11:43--"formula retail zones" --are you referring to the grants slated for the Easton buildings, or are you referring to how Vermonters keep out chain stores--sorry, just confused as to which point you are responding to...
Just coming back from Vermont - there is no better tourist attraction in Vermont than their highways and byways free of commercial signage. It so stunning and unusual (at this point) to see pure landscape and sky. No litter. And no angry drivers. There are certain "sacred cows" in the rest of the US and one of them is a die hard belief that business has a right to insert its agenda everywhere and anywhere. And a growing assumption that human beings are about buying things and being stimulated. There is no where to go to be just content and peaceful. Except Vermont. A place where real "America" still is.
Vermont keeps out stores by a variety of means. Their zoning tends to prohibit the construction of large stores and large parking lots and large setbacks, etd. Formula retail means "by contractual or other
arrangement to maintain any of the following: standardized ('formula') array of services
and/or merchandise, trademark, logo, service mark, symbol, decor, architecture, layout,
uniform, or similar standardized feature." Formula retail Zoning restricts or prohibits businesses not only on building size but business organization. Therefore, a small storefront that offers Starbucks would be limited or prohibited in such a district. I don't think Vermont has gone to Formula Retail restrictions, yet. But, I have not been there in the recent year.
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