THE WORLD IS FLAT!!!
Originally Published : April 29, 2026
THE WORLD IS FLAT!!!
HL NOW OFFERING
FLAT FEES FOR LEASES
&
RESTAURANT OPENING BUNDLES
PLUS:
*Outdoor Dining Update
* Live Seminars Return
* Free Wage and Hour Audit!
Dear Clients and Friends,
We agree, the rent is too damn high and so is aggro Landy. And so is the cost of food requiring owners to charge $40 for half a chicken. And so is labor with the tepid tip credit and silly swipe charges. It all adds up to Ozempic injected shriveling profit margins and that affects everyone in the industry from our moms and pops to our Milos’ and Masas. We feel your pain, we understand the current conditions and we love you all so we decided to do something about it.
In a bid to make legal fees more predictable and less expensive for our clients, HL is announcing that we are now charging a flat fee for lease reviews and negotiations as well as for other legal services. We are also offering a restaurant start-up package with a set fee that will apply to any new restaurant, no matter how big your hospitality group or how expansive the buildout. We want you to be able to budget for your new projects without having to put a question mark next to legal.
The lease price will depend on its length and complexity but it will be a flat fee no matter what. If Landy gets randy and wants to re-trade and play head games – it’s covered. If their “old school” lawyer redlines with a pencil in the margins, uses a fax machine and a dictaphone and it takes forever to get through a phone call – no extra charge. It’s our attempt to bring sanity to unpredictable legal costs and to encourage our clients to get us involved earlier in the process without having to think twice about picking up the phone or emailing because they fear the billable hour.
HL is also offering a restaurant opening bundle that will include a flat fee for most of the legal things you need to open a new restaurant. It will include a liquor license, lease, trademark filing, employee handbook and corporate formation all for a discounted flat fee. These services are also offered à la carte of course.
We’re continuing to push toward flat fees wherever we can in all sections of the firm, because we have heard you and agree that legal fees shouldn’t come with guesswork. We started this firm to support and protect an industry that we love, and we hope this move gives operators the clarity and confidence they need to run and open their businesses.
Feel free to discuss flat fees with any of our attorneys for any project. We can’t do it for everything quite yet but we will do our best to accommodate you. For more info on flat fees, email me at [email protected] or simply respond to this email address.
– David
Outdoor Dining Update by Matt Borowiec, Licensing Clerk
There is currently a massive bottleneck at the end of the DOT’s application review process, with applicants waiting up to 12 months in extreme cases for their permits to pass through the very end of the process. Applications submitted in the spring/summer of 2024 are still waiting on their permits to be issued. The application review process contains a tremendous amount of red tape, passing through the hands of the DOT, community boards, city council, city comptroller, and the mayor’s office, with stops along the way in several different city databases and systems of record.
Here’s a breakdown of some recent developments within the program for old and new applications:
Sidewalk cafe applications that were submitted before the August 3rd, 2024 deadline may continue operating for food service while their application is processed. If the application received a conditional approval at any point (regardless of when the application was submitted), that conditional approval is still valid, per the DOT, as long as it wasn’t revoked at any point in the application process.
All roadway cafe conditional approvals expired at the end of November 2025. Roadway cafes cannot be constructed or operated until applicants receive a fully issued permit or a new Temporary Authorization (more on that below).
The DOT stopped issuing conditional approvals in late 2025, and will not issue any more in the future. For a brief period in late March/early April 2026, the DOT had begun issuing Temporary Authorizations to applications that have been registered with the city’s financial system and submitted to the Comptroller. However, the issuance of those authorizations has now been paused. The DOT has stated that they are working with their legal team to begin issuing these again, but there is no indication when or if this will happen.
The SLA accepts either conditional approval emails or fully issued licenses to be submitted with the Municipal Alteration application, which is required to permit alcohol service in the new sidewalk or roadway cafes.
The DOT has stated that an application submitted today should receive a new license in 4-6 months. However, we have applications that have been maneuvering through the process for 23 months at this point. The hope is that timelines will speed up once the DOT finishes off the initial batch of applications they received at the start of the program, but it’s anyone’s guess when that will finally happen.
Contact Matt at: matt.borowiec@helbraunlevey.
Complimentary Wage and Hour Audit by the HL Labor Practices Group
Every day we are seeing restaurants and hospitality groups getting hit with wage and hour lawsuits that could have been avoided. Plaintiffs’ lawyers are aggressively targeting the industry, and the claims are often based on technical issues, not bad behavior. A small gap in compliance can quickly turn into a six-figure problem. It’s maddening.
HL defends these cases regularly, and the reality is most of them don’t start with a major mistake. They start with something simple that no one caught early. So we decided to get in front of it.
We’re offering a complimentary wage and hour audit for our clients and friends of the firm. Yes, we are comping it.
The goal is straightforward: identify risk before it becomes a lawsuit.
As part of the audit, we will:
• Review your wage notices and pay statements
• Flag potential areas of exposure
• Provide clear, practical recommendations tailored to how your business actually operates
This is not theoretical advice. It’s based on what we’re seeing in active litigation right now. If you’d like us to take a look, reach out to Brianne or Jenn who run our amazing labor practices team to get started.
Brianne Murphy – brianne.murphy@helbraunlevey.
Jenn Lagadas – [email protected]
Live- In-Person Seminar – How to Form and Grow a Hospitality Group w/ Andrew Fine and David Helbraun
May 19th at 11:00AM- HL Office at 40 Fulton Street, 28th Floor
The hospitality industry is starting to look a lot like the broader economy: the big players keep getting bigger, and the smaller ones are getting squeezed.
Why? It’s not just capital. It’s structure.
The larger groups are built to scale. They’re more efficient, more strategic, and better positioned to grow. The good news is those advantages aren’t out of reach. With the right corporate structure in place, smaller hospitality groups can operate smarter, increase profitability, and actually position themselves to scale.
And right now, scalability is everything. It’s what investors are looking for, and what separates operators who grow from those who get stuck. If expansion is even remotely on your radar, this is a conversation worth having.
Join us on May 19th for a discussion focused on scalability and long-term success. We’ll share what we’re seeing in the market, how the best operators are structuring themselves, and practical steps you can take now. We’ll also leave time for Q&A so you can get into the specifics.
Hope to see you there.
Space is limited so please sign up at the link here!
R.I.P: Tom Valenti, Catherine O’Hara, Robert Duvall, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Valentino, Neil Sedaka, Willie Colón, Demond Wilson, thank you all for your musical, culinary, artistic and political contributions to humanity.
And, of course, Bob Weir. He was always Bobby to us deadheads, the kid in the band when he joined at 19 years old and Jerry’s sidekick for all those years playing with the Grateful Dead. Bobby sang half the tunes and he always did it with energy and feeling. Looks Like Rain made us cry, Playin’ had us jamming and Sugar Magnolia had us all letting loose. The music never stopped and we are eternally grateful that you were here with us all these years sharing your magic and your music in your cutoff jeans. It was always a hoot!
Hang in there everyone and Happy Spring.
David
