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Still, New York’s storefronts—in some neighborhoods—are proof that the city isn’t immune to the trends that are reshaping retail across the U.S. Obviously, there is the rise of online shopping, which is causing consumers to spend more time each year gazing at browser windows than into store windows. Just as important, the U.S. is in the midst of a correction: After the Great Recession, the country had way too many stores—10 times more shopping space per capita than Germany, and five times more than the U.K. Many of the stories about failing department stores and shuttered malls are more about the ramifications of overbuilding than The End of Retail. Americans don’t need an order of magnitude more shopping space than Germans—especially when the world’s biggest strip mall is in the cloud.

In the past two weeks, I’ve spoken with several people about what’s happening to retail—not only in New York City, but also throughout the U.S. Everybody agreed that something important is happening. Not everybody agreed that it was making New York—or the U.S.—a better place.

In the biggest picture, the retail industry is working to figure out which Amazon-proof businesses belong in brick-and-mortar stores. For now, the answer seems to be restaurants.

As e-commerce stores have moved from entertainment and electronics into clothing and pharmacy staples, the biggest winner has been the one thing you definitely can’t get from a warehouse: a hot meal—or an iced coffee. “Food & Beverage” has been the largest category of new retail leases for the past three years in New York City, according to data shared with me by Cushman & Wakefield. “Fast casual” restaurants that combine quick service with high-quality ingredients, like Sweetgreen and Chipotle, have grown by 105 percent in the past 10 years.

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“This is a restaurant city, not a food city,” said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at NYU. “It’s as if nobody knows or cares about cooking. Young people barely know how to make coffee.” Tough words, but fair. The fastest-growing chain in New York City in the past decade was Dunkin’ Donuts, with 271 new locations added since 2008. That’s one new Dunkin’ franchise in the city about every 12 days.*

In this respect, New York City is right in line with national trends. Since around 2012, restaurant spending has surged, especially among the young, rich, educated, and urban. For the richest 20 percent, restaurant spending has grown by twice as much as spending on food prepared at home since 2012. Americans between the age of 25 and 34 now spend about half of their food budget eating out, according to the Consumer Expenditure Survey. That is without precedent in American history. (In 1904, 90 percent of food was consumed at home.)