Kitchen KabaretBy Micah Jesse Koffler
Always keeping up with the trends, in relation to style, restaurants, and happenings in Manhattan, I came across a restaurant/café/delicatessen in Roslyn Heights, Long Island that draws a Manhattan crowd with a taste for style and exclusivity. When I moved to New York 3 years ago, I heard about Kitchen Kabaret almost instantly, but did not know many of the interesting facts that make this eating establishment so special until doing this project.
While taking a look at the people that frequent Kitchen Kabaret, I found it interesting to profile the wealthy demographics of the area, which includes towns like Roslyn, Manhasset, and Mineola. I also made sure to do my research about the shopping plazas, hotels, boutiques, salons & spas in the area to get a better feel for this demographic of people. There are an abundance of high-end shopping plazas and boutiques I could have profiled, but I decided to focus on the largest of them all, The Americana Manhasset, which features almost every store on 5th Avenue in New York City.
For my project, I first visited The Americana Manhasset (also called “The Miracle Mile,” by locals), Kitchen Kabaret, Singer 22 clothing boutique, and Ambiance salon and spa. I found that mostly people were very willing to speak, except for a representative for The Americana, which was one of the many difficulties I had in completing this project. At Kitchen Kabaret, though, they welcomed me with open arms. The manager and vice president of the company, Jim “Jimmy, Jr.” King, gladly let me interview him and was very candid about starting the business, the struggles in opening a business, among many other interesting facts. I was also able to interview a few girls that frequent Kitchen Kabaret on a regular “every day” basis.
Another thing I found difficult was trying to fit all of my video footage into a 2-minute news piece. This challenge in regard to video editing taught me a great deal about being concise and to the point with the news you are reporting. My advice to future students taking this Online Journalism class is to always have extra batteries on hand in case your FlipCam runs out. But, most importantly - set aside a great deal of time for editing on Movie Maker, because even though it seems easy and you may be computer literate, it's harder than you think!
