Allentown's Johnny Ma ana's is on the block

Johnny Manana's, celebrated by local politicians and business leaders as a symbol of downtown Allentown's renaissance, is for sale for $1.5 million, according to several sources.

[bullroarin roofer]

.....and the trumpet says "wah waahh".

[Taco Bell]

Hows about a plan to put a Taco Bell on the west side for the Crackers instead of catering to elite downtown Mexicans.

[dannyboy]

What makes special Ed think anyone will come downtown at night

[SmokersAreLosers]

Just one more nail in A-town's coffin!!

[nyc illegal alien]

a job johnny toilet would have been cheaper, and made more sense.

[snowman Allentown PA]

Another one of fuzzy head ed's fine plans...... shot down. No more free meals.

[LookingToEscape]

snowman Allentown PA wrote:

Another one of fuzzy head ed's fine plans...... shot down. No more free meals.

Maybe some of Allentown's slum lords could have had dinner there. They probably didn't feel safe going into center city.

[MonkeyMomma]

If a restaurant can't make it downtown with ALL of the tax breaks Mananas received, then that is a very bad sign.

First the Federal, now Mananas. How long until the Fegley Brothers pack it up and move BrewWorks out of town?

Such a bummer. It was a beautiful restaurant, although the food wasn't exactly awesome. Is it still open right now? Or did I skip past that info in the article?

[michael molovinsky]

the real tragedy of the story, is that public safety was put on hold, while pawlowski pursued these projects for which there was no real market demand.
http://www.molovinskyonallentown.blogspot.com...

[Talking Hawk]

So it seems another heavy load gets slapped into mexican overdrive....

[rob]

nice renaisance, allen clowns. your city is a joke. give up, losers.

[Bossy Gillis]

Your tax dollars at work, why would Ed give 50K to a restaurant start up knowing full well how many do not survive?

[LookingToEscape]

michael molovinsky wrote:

the real tragedy of the story, is that public safety was put on hold, while pawlowski pursued these projects for which there was no real market demand.
http://www.molovinskyonallentown.blogspot.com...

Someone at City Hall needs to keep in mind you need a community that has residents with money.

[Say what]

I think you will see more and more eating and drinking places folding up throughout the area. Starbucks, Cold Stone Creamery and a lot of other trendy places are sinking fast. With all the homes in foreclosure and layoffs starting, people aren't going to be eating out. As for me, I can make good meals for 4 people on what some of these places charge for an appetizer and a soda.

[Horrible Service and Food]

This is no surprise. This restaurant was poor to begin with. Standing around wait and kitchen staff and cold food. Also, a very poor and unsafe location for dinner and weekend crowds. Lunch during the week is ok with all of the PPL employees hanging around.

[yea like]

Were all gonn a move out to frisco to be wit a bunch of cross dressing illegals.

rob wrote:

nice renaisance, allen clowns. your city is a joke. give up, losers.

[comment]

You hit the nail on the head with Allen Clowns.

1. Pawlowski declined to comment.
2. City spokesman Mike Moore,'We don't have any information on Johnny Mañana's being for sale, so we can't comment on that.''
3. Community and Economic Development Director Joyce Marin declined to comment, referring all questions to Moore.

Allentown's whole strategy is wrong. You don't throw money at new businesses, and ignore what remained and were operational.
Here is what Allentown has been giving up.
1. Keystone Oppportunity Zones, tax free for 10 years. Complete loss of tax revenues.
2. State grants to both this property and also Brew Works Restaurant and they are still searching for more.
3. Facade improvment and restaurant grant for a brank new building, less than 5 years old. Mananas was already an establishe, but already fading brand in East Falls.

This was another Ed Rendell connection hook-up to try to help friends. They threw money at a lousy business concept.

1. Let's open a mid-prized, upscale location Hispanic restaurant in a city where 40% of the town is Hispanic and makes less than the $18,000 per year per capita income.

They were idiots with this strategy from the beginning. I believe, if you go back and look at my comments when they announced this in January I said it would not last one year and this was all wasted public money.

What Allentown needs to do is reduce all forms of taxation for business so that it is fair and helps existing business to survive and consider expansion, rather than just packing it in and looking for cheaper locations.

Attack Allentown's problem from a macroeconomic perspective. Everthing that is wrong with Allentown is due to bifurcation into a poor and a rich, with limited middle class. The problem has to creation of 10,000 jobs within Allentown that pay around $15 per hour. Unitl you start getting these types of jobs, increasing education attainment, and stabilizing taxes, you will never see a recovery of Allentown.

[rob]

yea like wrote:

Were all gonn a move out to frisco to be wit a bunch of cross dressing illegals.
<quoted text>

hey look, everyone, another mental midget who automatically assumes I'm posting from San Francisco, rather than from Bethlehem using a remote server where my company's network is located.

[bad food and service]

I'm not surprised that this business is failing. My family and I ate there before the LV half-marathon kids' race (when they should have been packed) and the restaurant was completely empty, other than us. Our server kept disappearing for long periods of time, and even thogh the restaurant was empty, our food took forever, was cold when it came, and tasted terrible. I'm sure that we are not the only people to have a bad experience there.

[bad food and service]

If someone buys the restaurant, will they get the same deal on the liquor license that Bonnie received?