The New Year always starts out with folks wanting to make prognostications as to what the forthcoming twelve months will bring. Financial people look at indicators from the opening day on Wall Street (up 150’ish for those who don’t recall) to consumer confidence numbers. Retailers take physical and emotional inventory of the ‘OND’ (October-November-December) and especially the holiday ‘D’ numbers while restaurateurs intuitively get a hit from the level of consumer happiness they detect in the dining room, the number of private parties booked at holiday and what they were spending, and bullishly anticipate what the first few weeks of the year will bring. Continue reading »