SamPratt.com

More stuff under $100

I’ve added a bunch of new items to my annual Hudson Under $100 holiday shopping site... Click here to check ’em out. (Since there are now about 100 items, I’ve divided these into two batches; so be sure to click through to both Part 1 and Part 2.)

Affordable Hudson

The 2011 installment of my annual Hudson Under $100 local shopping guide is now live at this link. Here is the 2009 description of the site’s purpose, besides the obvious:

A Thanksgiving-time stroll through the eclectic shops on and off Warren Street reveals a wide variety of goods priced from $1 to $99.  ¶  When contemplating your holiday gift list, Hudson deserves serious consideration. With just a little looking, one-of-a-kind presents can be found at reasonable prices... Much more than dark-wood antiques, Hudson offers diverse items either decorative or practical, humorous or chic, old or new.  ¶  While supporting main street merchants, you can do your holiday shopping all in one place without setting foot in a mall. Buying local also has the virtue of not contributing to the glut of plastic-and-foam packaging, nor to companies whose manufacturing has been moved off-shore, nor ennabling products whose shipping required thousands of miles worth of fossil fuels.

Virtual Graffiti: Historical Marker

Photoshopping by OuroborosX, on Flickr.

Comparative Burgerology

Does healthy, organic food cost more than “regular” food? And what’s a hamburger supposed to cost around here, anyway?

Ever since Grazin’ revitalized a formerly-empty restaurant space on Warren Street, one has heard more than a few hyperbolic discussions about prices, with little actual relationship to the reality of the 21st Century cost of delivering a decent meal.

The chart below collects some representative menu prices for burgers in the region. For the purposes of a fair comparison, the price of a side of fries was included if those don’t come automatically with the burger:

As the hard numbers above show, the price of a burger in these parts can range from a low of $5.50 to a high of $13. The average burger price of the 15 establishments list above is $9.98—precisely 3 cents higher than than that of the Grazin’ all-organic, Animal Welfare Certifed burger.

In short, getting a healthy, organic, responsibly-created, locally-sourced, farm-to-table burger is no more expensive than eating at most any other non-fastfood restaurant in the area... which just points up the irrationality of some of the anti-organic voices in our midst. Those who denounce $9-$10 for a burger as outrageous clearly haven’t been getting out much lately.

Now some Rush Limbaugh listeners may cry foul, noting that they could get a slider and fries at McDonald’s or Burger King for even less than any of the prices above. Yes, you could... except those aren’t hamburgers. Those are reprocessed sewage patties masquerading as food. If you eat them regularly, you will almost certainly die early. And the price of that to your family and society far exceeds anything that buying organic ever could.

Lubricious

Collection of oiling cans at Warren Street Antiques, Hudson (NY).

NKOT(300)B

New shop and music venue in the 300 block -- 3FortySeven, spelled just like that -- managed by Giovanni di Mola, at the former City Glass/John Doe site.

Hudson Textures (III)

Click image to enlarge... Seen at Warren Street Antiques (322 Warren, 518-671-6699).

Hudson Textures (II)

Click image to enlarge... Seen at Warren Street Antiques (322 Warren, 518-671-6699).

Hudson Textures (I)

Click image to enlarge... Seen at Warren Street Antiques (322 Warren, 518-671-6699).

Crossover

White Rice is about to become the latest area business to cross the New York-Massachusetts border, opening a satellite location in Great Barrington to complement their huge Hudson store. The second White Rice location will be located on Main Street, several doors south of the corner of Railroad Street, and is expected to open in the next 10-14 days.

As previously reported here, Baba Louie’s (the hugely successful organic pizza joint which began in Barrington) added a second location in Hudson several years ago, and recently announced plans to expand back over the border again with a third location in Pittsfield. Hammertown Barn, which unfortunately lost its prime Hudson lease some years ago, similarly has had stores in both Dutchess and Berkshire counties for a good while now. Meanwhile, Mexican Radio in Hudson is expanding north to Schenectady, already having NYC and Hudson locations. Until recently, Dan Seward’s Jean Deux was operating in both Hudson and Northhampton.

This would appear to be a part of a general trend toward regional franchising. What works in Barrington would seem to have a decent shot at working in Hudson, or in Northhampton, or in Rhinebeck, et al. It wouldn't be surprising if there were eventually a Baba Louie’s Williamstown, and a White Rice Burlington, and a Mexican Radio Millerton.

The one concern is that such expansion not happen too rapidly, bringing a whole series of stores down—as happened to the Muddy Cup franchise which began in Staten Island, opened a Hudson version, and then expanded exponentially to Saugerties, Albany, New Paltz, et al., and now has mostly collapsed. Organic growth, step by step, would seem the safer route.

Urban renewal

Though the national economy remains stagnant, people seem to keep betting on Hudson... Here are just a few recent pieces of local business news:

• Whitney and Steve Spooner have reopened their terrific (unnamed) shop at the corner of 1st and Warren on Thursdays through Saturdays;
  


• Terenchin Fine Art is moving any minute now from Catskill to the 500 block of Warren Street;


• The former Rowles Studio building in the 400 block has apparently sold, so longtime Hudson dealers Kathy Pakay and Ben Wilson are likewise moving on up from there to the 500 block;
  


• Hudson Supermarket’s café in the 300 block has transitioned from Indian to fresh, delicious Latin and South American cuisine;


• Two photography studios are opening on Warren, one in the 500 block and one on the  corner of Warren and Park Place;
  


• Master gardener Olenka Bachinsky (the mother of Swoon co-owner Nina) has opened a hothouse plant-and-furnishings shop in the former America Retold/Count Turkoffsky space just off Warren on 4th Street, adjoining Face Stockholm.

And to think none of them asked the County IDA for a tax break.

Kohl’s to Newcastle

The Register-Star issues yet another poorly-reasoned editorial pronouncement, this time on the question of giving tax breaks to the giant Kohl’s corporation, in the form of a PILOT plan.

Every poker player eventually learns that if the rest of the table knows you never call a bluff, you’re sure to leave the game with lighter pockets.

Yet the Register dismisses out of hand the idea of calling Kohl’s bluff. Nevermind that this is a deep-pocketed company. Nevermind that they are expanding all over the country. Nevermind that companies like Kohl’s will always run up a trial balloon to see if they can get towns to give away some tax breaks, whether they need it or not. Nevermind that if you show some backbone now, they’re likely to come back later with a better offer. Nevermind that the much-touted employment will likely be McJobs that don’t pay many if any benefits, and require people to take two other jobs to survive. Nevermind that Kohl’s wouldn’t even be bothering with doing market research and making time investments here if a PILOT were necessary to be viable.

No, says the paper: Let’s ignore Negotiation 101. Worse than that: Let’s negotiate from a position of weakness. Let’s sit down at the table quaking with fear that Kohl’s might walk away. Let’s not put on our own poker faces, and insist that they use local labor for construction of the store. Let’s not talk about inflation-adjusted payments. And let’s skirt the legalities that say you can’t give away tax dollars to a business which may steal customers from others who aren’t given the same breaks. Instead, let’s pretend this will have zero effect on existing businesses from Peebles to Steiner’s to de Marchin.

Heck, they might even cut into some of Wal-Mart’s business—though you won’t catch me crying for the Walton billionnaires...