Times Square Restaurants like Mine Depend on Broadway. A New Gaming Facility Will Help, not Hurt.
I’ve operated our restaurant, P.S. Kitchen, in Times Square, for the past 8 years. I’ve managed restaurants in New York City for over 15 years. In this business, margins are razor-thin — every bit of foot traffic matters. Even just a few extra guests per day can make the difference between surviving and struggling in a given month.
For the restaurants of Times Square, Broadway is one of our major lifelines. We love our Broadway family. A huge percent of our guests come before and after shows, and we want nothing more than for theater to thrive. Recently, some members of the Broadway industry have spoken out against Caesars Palace Times Square: the proposal from SL Green, Roc Nation, and Caesars Entertainment to build a gaming facility at 1515 Broadway.
I believe that any Broadway theater that is opposed to this project isn’t taking the restaurants’ needs into account and not seeing the full picture while being overly concerned about competition. Caesars Palace Times Square is not competing with Broadway — it won’t be putting on Broadway-style shows or serving the kind of dining we have in the neighborhood. What it will do is bring people: more people walking, eating, shopping, and exploring Times Square. That will directly benefit small businesses like PS Kitchen and their employees. The truth is, the demographic for live gaming isn’t always the same as Broadway shows. But all visitors have one thing in common — they need to eat. The casino attendees might also bring people in their party to Times Square that otherwise wouldn’t come here and they now end up seeing a Broadway show.
New entertainment options are nothing but good for the area in my opinion. And the atmosphere and culture around gaming has already changed around us: We have sports betting on every phone and lottery tickets on most blocks — gambling is already here in New York City, and it hasn’t been hurting Broadway.
Broadway has highs and lows: theaters go dark, shows close (especially in the summer), tourism numbers ebb and flow. Office workers are still working from home more than they did before Covid. Caesars Palace Times Square will bring back a steady stream of visitors, every single day, filling those gaps left by hybrid work and shows closing or being dark on certain days – all of this will help keep the neighborhood more alive.
The Broadway producers who are so skeptical of Caesars Palace Times Square have done plenty of scaremongering about crime. That seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of these types of gaming resorts, which come with security inside and outside of the casino.
Ultimately, safety is really about people — the more people you have around, the less crime there is. Daytime is safer than nighttime because there are more people. A busy corner is safer than a dark, quiet one because there are more people. Right now, with so many office workers still at home, our streets have fewer people, which ultimately makes it less safe.
The Syracuse University study on ‘eyes on the street’ proved this: when sidewalks are busy with people shopping, dining, and living their lives, crime drops significantly. Caesars Palace Times Square will bring that steady foot traffic back to the neighborhood around the clock, and that’s what makes the area vibrant, welcoming, and safe. It’s simple. There will also be public bathrooms as part of the Caesar’s Palace project, which is very much needed for the neighborhood businesses and walkers.
My direct experience is that as soon as we started seeing fewer people in the neighborhood as a result of people working from home and shows closing on our block, we started seeing more people using the bathroom on the street in public, public drug use, and more crime. The slower and more quiet the neighborhood gets the more often we are visited by the NYPD to review our security cameras due to crime on our block. I have personally witnessed drug use on the steps of a theater on our block while the theater was in between shows, which happens often. That theater is currently not hosting a show and is reported to not be opening another until at least November, which makes the sidewalk in front of the theater a magnet for unwanted and even dangerous activities.
The proposed casino is a well-resourced business that will have a vested interest in keeping crime out of our neighborhood every single day, and this will help all of us.
Caesars Palace Times Square isn’t just about gaming — it’s about revitalization. Our neighborhood has been through some of the toughest years in memory, and we can’t afford to turn away a project that promises to bring steady investment, jobs, and more energy to the heart of the Theater District. Restaurants, hotels, retail shops, and yes, Broadway itself all thrive when Times Square thrives. This project is a chance to strengthen the entire ecosystem.
Why would Broadway industry leaders try to hurt the very restaurants that also support their audiences? We’re all part of the same team. Let’s back this major new opportunity and keep Times Square thriving together.
Jeff LaPadula is the General Manager of P.S. Kitchen in Times Square.
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