At the Power Lunch, the Check Is Kryptonite

On a recent Monday night, Christine Peters, a producer of “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” tucked into a corner booth in the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel with a fellow producer and an actress. They chattered about a possible film for an hour or so before Ms. Peters excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. When she returned, she noticed a thin leather case sitting on the table, with the check inside.

Photo:Doug Ellis

“Did anybody get this?” she asked. Both women stared blankly, first at her, then the check. “We didn’t see it,” one finally said. When neither offered to pay the tab, nearly $100, Ms. Peters did what she has found herself doing more and more these days: she fished out her wallet and paid the check herself.

“They were polite,” she said. “But neither wanted to pay. It’s like you almost want to put them out of their misery.”

It used to be a common sight from Sparks to Spago — the boisterous scrum as diners wielding corporate cards dove for the lunch bill, crying “I’ll get it!” But since the economic downturn, the delicate social rituals of the bull market era, when executives tried to outdo one another in expense-account one-upmanship, have been upended.

Instead of dessert, many meals are ending with a cold, hard calculation of who is worth paying for and who isn’t. Often, the answers cause discomfort on both sides of the table.

For years Larry Kirshbaum, the former chief executive of the Time Warner Book Group, wooed a procession of agents and writers at restaurants like Michael’s and Patroon, showering them with praise and happily paying for the privilege. Then, in 2006, he became a literary agent himself. “All of my life I was taking agents to lunch and I was looking forward to getting my turn,” he said.

But the high life Mr. Kirshbaum was hoping for has turned out to be something of a low-rent affair. Instead of Michael’s, Mr. Kirshbaum said he often meets colleagues at the Comfort Diner on East 45th Street, where a grilled cheese sandwich costs $8.95. And more often than not, editors and publishers are asking him to pay for his own meal or skip lunch altogether. Last week a top book publisher asked him to lunch and agreed to pay. Mr. Kirshbaum’s initial delight faded when he learned that the publisher wanted to meet at a McDonald’s.

“This is what it has come to: ‘Can I come to your office and have a cup of water?’ ” he said. “People are really afraid to spend money. Anything that smacks of too much fun or self-indulgence is being frowned upon.”

That fear is being felt to varying degrees at restaurants where the bottom line is bolstered by expense accounts. At Michael’s in Manhattan, some patrons who used to come in for lunch three times a week are now down to two visits, according to the general manager, Steve Millington. They are passing up extras like bottled water and rarely ordering both an appetizer and a dessert. And, he said, the number of customers at breakfast — which is about 40 percent cheaper than lunch — has increased 20 percent.

At Wolfgang’s Steakhouse, which has locations in New York and California, the figures are more stark. At the Beverly Hills location, entertainment executives are spending 20 percent less than they did six months ago, according to the managing partner, Peter Zwiener. Wolfgang’s two Manhattan restaurants are down 10 to 15 percent, with traffic at the TriBeCa location hobbled by the troubles at Wall Street firms.

“Who would have thought that banking would be a riskier business than owning a restaurant?” Mr. Zwiener said.

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Not surprisingly, the politics of the business lunch have tilted toward the haves versus the have-a-littles. Nowadays, picking up the check is often a reflection of whose corporate balance sheet is in better shape.

“I feel lucky,” said Terry Press, a film marketing consultant who shuttles between New York and Los Angeles advising movie studios on how to promote their films. “I’m not sitting here keeping score of who I took to lunch and whether they paid or not. The fact is, I can afford to take people to lunch and that makes me lucky.”

More often than not, Ms. Press said, she ends up picking up the check because it is uncomfortable if she does not.

“It’s not like there is a look of relief on people’s faces when I reach out, but they are not grabbing for it, either,” she said. “I always reach for the check because it is too weird if no one does. Who wants to sit around with a check on the table? It lingers. It’s uncomfortable. If you can’t afford to pick up the check for lunch, then you shouldn’t go.”

In other words, she said, if the arrival of the check is more awkward lately, it is because some people have not yet adjusted to the new economic truth. These adjustments are particularly difficult in Hollywood, where the perception of wealth is often more salient than the reality. “You have to separate out what is the ‘ego lunch’ and the ‘regular lunch,’ ” Ms. Press said. “Lunch doesn’t have to be a statement about who you are.”

CONTINUED : Playing "credit card lottery"

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