Simply Sliders, a new takeout spot popular with the lunch crowds around Grand Central Terminal, is a lot like nearby food joints. It offers a trendy product—small Angus-beef burgers, fried chicken sandwiches and french fries wrapped in checkered paper. Customers have their choice of beverages, ranging from a variety of sodas to lemonade, and there are plenty of napkins for messy eaters. Yet unlike other eateries, Simply Sliders is only 85 square feet in size—a four-foot-wide cubby nestled between a Subway and a Lotto store on East 43rd Street.
“We’re an innovative model,” said Alon Kruvi, who opened Simply Sliders in May and pays about $3,000 in monthly rent. “We’re not paying for storage—we’re basically a stationary food truck.”
Honey, I shrunk the café! Across Manhattan, local food entrepreneurs, eager to open their own storefronts, are squeezing into tiny, shoebox-shaped retail properties less than 200 square feet in size.