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TONY AIGNER, THE president of Inhilco, is a man who likes to do favors for his friends. Last year he made 20 or 30 calls every week for friends on Wall Street, helping them get tables at top Manhattan restaurants.
"That's all finished," said Aigner. "Since January, I'm asked to help with a reservation once a week. People aren't eating out the way they did. And when they do, they can get their own tables. They don't need me."
Manhattan is going through what Tom Margittai of the Four Seasons calls "a restaurant recession." Owners say business is off. And it's not just the marginal restaurants that are suffering: it's the top end, the famous, high-priced restaurants that depend on expense-account meals.
Owners and managers blame it on the October stock market crash, whose effects were masked for a while by Christmas spending. They say business began to slide after the New Year, and fell more rapidly last month, when corporations paid the first taxes reflecting lower deductions for business meals. But observers say that even before the crash the business was having problems with oversaturation and overpricing.
BECAUSE THE SLUMP is both recent and local, there are no figures to show how bad it is. The evidence is, so far, all anecdotal.
But anyone accustomed to the obligatory high spirits of restaurantowners ("How's business?" "Great, great!") is struck by their unusual willingness to say that business is bad. Anthony Amacagnone, owner of the 22-year-old Sal Anthony's, complained that "Things are rough, and nobody's talking about it. It's aggravating to read in the papers that the economy is perfect. You say `People are going out of business and the rest of the world is fine?' "
Shelley Abramowitz of the trendy, 9-month-old Cafe Society reported, "This is the worst it's been. I do a big volume, and business is off. I wouldn't want to be one of the little guys, one of the places in mid-block."
You hear it on the West Side, where Pat Rogers of Rogers and Barbero asked, "Why isn't the media picking up on this recession? Everyone I know is freaking out."
And on the East Side, where chef Brendan Walsh of Arizona 206 said, "The whole industry is hurting....