“If you walk past Crave Fishbar on a weekday afternoon, you might make the mistake of thinking it’s open for lunch. The restaurant, located on New York City’s Upper West Side, certainly looks busy enough. On a recent Thursday visit, I counted a few dozen people sitting in the restaurant’s booths or at the bar. Most of them were hunched over their laptops. A few were quietly taking phone calls. Curiously, no one was talking, no one was eating, and no one was there for lunch.

Crave has gotten into the coworking business. In April, the restaurant partnered with a startup called Spacious to transform its dining room into a weekday workspace. After all, in an age where everyone seems to have a side hustle, why shouldn’t a restaurant? Founded in 2016, Spacious bills itself as a cheaper, more flexible alternative to traditional coworking spaces like WeWork.”

“Brian Owens, the restaurant’s owner, said the Spacious partnership has been a welcome source of revenue in an industry where profit margins are tight. Crave has another location, in Midtown East, which is open for lunch because it’s near offices and other businesses. But the Upper West Side, Owens said, is a dead zone on weekday afternoons.”

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