Last summer, it was reported (and — dare I say — to much excitement) that I would open in the fall. It is now mid-February, and I am still sitting pretty — alluringly empty, hauntingly beautiful. I know it's been a while, but please, darling. Let me have my fun. 

 

Let me explain, darling. There has never been (and will never be) a better time to be me. Do you know what it feels like to have a former Goldman intern's face pressed up against your glass windows, darling, as he fantasizes about his Chase Sapphire Reserve card slipping frictionlessly into your cashless registers? To hear the passerby murmur as they reluctantly shuffle past your proud brick exterior on the way to lesser rival Sweetgreen, groaning about how badly they want to put their mouths against the charred florets of your lemon-roasted broccoli? Darling, I live for it. 

 

You may be wondering when I am opening, but I regret to inform you that the answer is never. You couldn't possibly be surprised, darling. My lights shine 24/7 on my naked, virginal storefront for my own exhibitionist pleasure. I fly my monochrome canvas flag fiercely as if upon the mast of a vessel making her maiden voyage, all so you might know me, desire me, and feel the Herculean devastation of my absence. 

 

Darling, please forgive me. I cannot disabuse myself of the sneaking suspicion that it is simply not possible for me to ever be as desirable as I am now. Dig today, Zambrero tomorrow, as it were. I cannot bear to let you take my maidenhood, to open my walls only for you to abandon me when another shiny new farm-to-table restaurant catches your wandering eye. It is an act of self-preservation, darling. It is difficult to survive in this world for one like me. Maybe one day you'll understand, darling, what it's like to be a fetishized object that evokes desire so overwhelming it could cannibalize you.