Trump‘s Sea Lake Estates Resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
Many New Yorkers and businesses are flocking to Palm Beach County, Florida, where there are no excessive restrictions on business and where the cost of living is one-third cheaper than in New York City, due to New York’s strict Epidemic control policies, as well as the cold climate, said an article on the Fox Business News website Saturday (Feb. 13).
The article said that two weeks ago, New York City temperatures plummeted below 20 degrees Fahrenheit and indoor dining is still prohibited, making the social Life of New Yorkers miserable. In Palm Beach County in southern Florida, however, restaurants and bars are full of people, and customers are laughing and talking loudly as if there is no such thing as a plague pandemic.
Tavern La Goulue recently opened a new location in Palm Beach, identical to its old tavern in Manhattan. The store’s bar and tables are now full every day.
Jean Denoyer, the tavern’s owner, says, “I escaped New York! Every guest takes their temperature when they come in, and we keep the doors and windows open to keep fresh air circulating.”
Philippe Delgrange, owner of the restaurant Le Bilboquet, also recently opened his new restaurant in Palm Beach. His New York City restaurant has just been allowed to open at 25 percent of its indoor capacity after being forced to close for two months. I’ve seen so many old friends here, I can’t believe it,” he says. All of our staff in New York have asked to come here to work.”
Although masks are required at all Palm Beach County businesses, they can be removed while eating and drinking, and there are no specific social distance rules. As a result, it is not uncommon for restaurants to be filled with people who also do not wear masks.
Those coming from the north feel as if they are in a parallel universe where old friends can meet again in a favorite, sunny spot.
Joe Wagner, 63, a real estate developer, arrived in South Florida in late January, originally planning a two-week stay, but decided to stay until March. He often enjoys indoor dinners at La Goulue restaurant in Florida. “Sometimes I feel a little insecure,” Wagner said, adding that in New York he was stuck at Home, though it’s clear that people are more relaxed when they get here.
Wagner said he’s not ready to go back north anytime soon. A friend of mine sent me a picture of himself at La Goulue restaurant (outdoor dining) in New York, wearing a hat and two scarves, and said his fingers were frozen blue,” he said. I sent him a photo of my pool.”
As of Feb. 12, New York restaurants were finally allowed to host indoor dining at 25 percent of capacity, but Palm Beach has long been free of restrictions.
New York’s Café Boulud will close until the end of 2021, but at its branch in Palm Beach, patrons can hang out on the lushly landscaped patio. New York restaurants such as Bice, Sant Ambroeus and Almond all have locations in Palm Beach. Even some restaurants that closed down in New York have been resurrected in Palm Beach.
It’s hard to find an empty seat in any of Palm Beach’s popular restaurants. “I can’t believe how many people have come running here this year, it’s like a jailbreak!” said John Lehmann, 59, who lives on the island and runs a sports marketing company.
“I’ve been reborn again. I could move here for the rest of my life,” said Erica Holzer, a 47-year-old Long Island housewife. She and her husband are staying at the beachfront Opal Grand Hotel for eight weeks. They took precautions, but they weren’t ridiculous,” she said. We went to the bar and had a good Time. It was so freeing to be here.”
That sense of freedom is not limited to restaurants. Fitness enthusiasts in New York are limited to receiving coaching via video while wearing a mask, but SoulCycle now hosts open-air classes on the green grass at Royal Poinciana Plaza in Palm Beach. It’s next to a branch of New York’s Paul Labrecque salon, where customers bask in the sun in the courtyard as they wait for their color and nail polish to dry.
While New York’s Lincoln Center, Broadway and Carnegie Hall are all dark, the Kravis Center in West Palm has announced a live jazz show for later this month.
“It’s such a relief to be here. It feels like I can finally breathe,” said Boo Huth, a 60-year-old event organizing consultant from Greenwich, Connecticut.
While most of the people flocking to Palm Beach from the New York area are undoubtedly wealthy, cheap airfare and hotel accommodations are also attracting more visitors.
“Ironically, it’s actually a third cheaper to live in Florida than it is to live in New York, and young people have realized that,” said Gene Pressman, 70, a former Manhattan resident who has now moved to Palm Beach.
Pressman’s wife Christine, 48, added, “Palm Beach used to be full of people from uptown Manhattan, but now people from downtown Manhattan are coming here, too.”
The lack of social distance required in some parts of Palm Beach, as opposed to New York’s home lockdown, has created a Culture shock for some newcomers.
“Some people say it’s like the Wild West,” says Todd Herbst, owner of new Palm Beach restaurant Elisabetta’s, “and they’re surprised at how open everything is here. It’s like the plague doesn’t even exist, but we require all employees to wear masks and don’t allow parties of more than 10 people.”
“I arrived here last week and it felt like another world,” said Charles Rosenberg, a resident of Soho, N.Y., who lives in the commercial real estate business. The 30-year-old plans to stay in Palm Beach for several weeks.
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