LION WASN’T KIDDING AROUND
C. sent this shot from City Hall Park yesterday — looks like the Parks Department jumped the gun on fountain operations.

L’ABEILLE IS OPEN
L’Abeille, the French restaurant that has been percolating in the former Dig Inn space on Greenwich, opened last night. (Lots of details here from my post last fall.) It was created by Tribecan Rahul Saito and Mitsunobu Nagae, a veteran Michelin-starred chef who has worked at restaurants in Tokyo, Paris and here, most recently as chef de cuisine at Shun in Midtown. The restaurant is centered on a six-course prix-fixe menu but also provides a rotating selection of seasonal a-la-carte dishes with a strong wine and cocktail program. More TK when I can go by, but it looks gorgeous inside — the work of designer Marta Carvalho. The photo below is the poached lobster, just to give you a taste.

GRANTS FOR SMALL BUSINESS SOUTH OF MURRAY
The Downtown Alliance has two grant programs for small businesses launching this spring: Get Social will teach local businesses how to best use social media to enhance their business and offer a $1,500 grant to spend on advertising and content creation. The deadline is April 22. And Jump Start will give $10K grants to 20 new businesses that already have a signed lease in the district. Find info on that here. NB: the Alliance’s catchment area is south of Murray, so only those there can apply.

MORE TECH TO COME AT WHOLE FOODS?
I didn’t really expect a clarifying answer, but still, I asked WF corporate if they were going to add their “Just Walk Out” technology of thousands of sensors and cameras to our store. They have it in place at two stores so far. This was the non-committal answer: “For now we’re excited to see how customers like being able to skip the checkout and use Just Walk Out Shopping in Sherman Oaks and Washington, D.C., and we’ll go from there.”