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On the Matter of the Deathwatch and Times Like These

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So, here's the thing. In the last few months, the demand for Deathwatch has shot up tenfold. Said bloodthirst is wholly warranted: dining rooms are increasingly turning into ghost towns, several newbies have already earned stillbirth status, all while the promotions get more desperate (the "frugal foodie" menu? really?). For serious, OpenTable even has an unheard-of 7:45 opening at Zuni. Toss in the cost of doing business in the city, and we've got the worst state of affairs in years for the restaurant biz. Paychecks are bouncing, heavies are bowing out, and investors are thinking twice, thrice about funding those new projects. And odds are it's gonna get worse. Sounds like tons of fun, right? Yeah, not really.

How the Deathwatch factors in here: as you can see yonder in New York, an emergency meeting of the Deathwatch Committee was called earlier today, with the upshot being that the Deathwatch has been suspended until further notice (but absolutely not—no way in hell—permanently). In its stead, Eater will be bringing you some new features in the coming weeks, one of which shall be called Rally Cry, which has you nominating restaurants we then collectively try to save.

The point is that we know that you know that we know that we're all in this together. We've got no love for a scenario with fewer great restaurants to obsess over, so here's us doing our part.

Your thoughts—and maybe even some early Rally Cry nominations?—are very much welcomed in the comments, naturally. And now, back to our regularly scheduled, less nicey-nice programming.