ABSTRACT
SUMMARY. This research profiles the New York City restaurant industry response to a dramatic drop in business volume following the September 11th terrorist attack. Limited accessibility to the neighborhoods around the site of the World Trade Center challenged restaurants and other businesses to respond and survive the crisis. Through in-depth personal interviews with 14 restaurateurs, we compare the New York City response to the responses of other international tourism destinations
in times of great personal and property losses. We examine the restaurateurs’ first response following the terrorist attack followed by their responses to employees, customers, and changes in business volume and management. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress. com> Website: <https://www.HaworthPress.com>; © 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Restaurants, response, crisis, New York City
That day everything just stopped at 9 am in the morning . . . a woman who works upstairs . . . . said a plane hit the World Trade Center. We thought it was a little plane. Our manager came in and said there was an attack: then, I stepped outside and lines of people started forming at the pay phones. We just left the door open and gave people water, a place to sit, letting people use the phones because their cells were not working.
