If there’s one city where you can make Thanksgiving dining plans at the last minute, its New York City. There are a number of last minute reservations that are available and a good variety of restaurant and menu options. Below is a list of a few restaurants that GrubStreet compiled that still have reservations on Turkey Day with some great menus:

To see a full list of last-minute Thanksgiving Day restaurant options in the city, along with a great list of takeout options, click here

Its time to gear up for the cold by packing on those layers, and of course by locating New York’s best cups of hot chocolate. To take your mind off the dreaded words “polar vortex,” Grubstreet has compiled a list of a few spots in the city that serve an elevated cup of hot chocolate. This great city is full of chefs, bartenders, baristas, and bakers wanting to step up their chocolate game to offer exotic versions of the classic hot chocolate.  A few of these listed below are spiked with ingredients such as lavender, salted caramel, brownie batter, and actual alcohol. Here are some of the options from the Grubstreet survey to go out and try!

Maman
Price: $3.50
Secret Ingredient: Lavender
It’s no surprise that the bakery with the most amazing new chocolate chip cookie in town also makes a solid hot chocolate. The milk is infused with dried lavender, then strained, steamed, and combined with melted dark chocolate. Plus: Maman also sells prepackaged spoons made of chocolate, which melt beautifully into a mug of warm milk.

Blue Bottle Coffee at Gotham West Market
Price: $5
Secret Ingredient: Coffee
Of course, there’s coffee in this hot chocolate — making it a mocha, technically. Mast Brothers supply the chocolate ganache.

Victory Garden
Price: $4.50
Secret Ingredient: Cajeta
Sophia Brittan makes a salted-caramel hot chocolate, using traditional chocolate from Oaxaca, Mexico. It’s hand-frothed with a Mexican molinillo whisk and topped with homemade cajeta and sea salt.

Shake Shack
Price: $3.50
Secret Ingredient: Salted caramel
This year, Shake Shack’s hot chocolate includes a blend of bittersweet dark chocolates, caramel sauce, sea salt, and milk. It’s exactly what you need after waiting in line, in the freezing cold, just for a perfect burger.

Pasar Malam
Price: Free!
Secret Ingredient: Condensed chocolate milk
A wise business strategy at this relatively new version of a Malaysian night market: Give customers a hot drink as soon as they arrive. To make this “Pulled Hot Chocolate Tea”: orange-Pekoe tea infused with warm spices, and then drizzled in condensed chocolate milk.

To check out the full list of great spots in the city to get a cup of special hot chocolate, click here

TaraPaige Group was sad to post a few months ago that the New Amsterdam Market at the old Fulton Fish Market would be closing due to the redevelopment of the area by Howard Hughes Corporation. Good news! Although not in the same location, the market will be returning next year. Robert LaValva is not yet ready to reveal the new home of the New Amsterdam Market, but is eager to reopen a space where butchers, cheesemongers, seafood dealers and other vendors are able to showcase their fare.

The real estate developers are planning to demolish the old New Market building to construct a high rise waterfront tower. This decision was of course met with a strong opposition. After a solid seven years of events being hosted at the South Street Seaport location, the official next event will take place in late February of 2015. April Bloomfield, chef of the Spotted Pig was on the market’s board of directors and will be appearing on a panel to discuss the future of the Seaport next Monday, November 10th. For more information on this panel discussion, click here.

To read more about the future of the New Amsterdam Market in the upcoming year, click here

As Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration is looking to eliminate letter grades for public schools, the NYC Hospitality Alliance  believed it is a good opportunity to urge City Hall to focus on the letter-grade system in restaurants. The reasoning behind removing the letter grades in public schools was that it affected reputations and could feel punitive, which is the same case for restaurants. Letter grades can be misleading for diners as they only reflect a restaurant’s sanitary condition in the period of time that they were inspected.

The point allocation is also something that the NYC Hospitality Alliance believes should be rethought so that the point values fairly reflect their impact on food safety. Another suggested reform is to eliminate points for non-food-safety-related violations as well as seeing the adjudication process  through to the end before scheduling a second inspection. Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, fully believes that the restaurant industry believes in high food-safety standards and would do a better job of upholding these standards if they were not being slapped with fines and punitive letters from a letter grade system that is in need of a reform.

To read more about how the restaurant grading system currently works and what could improve the current system, click here

New York City hasn’t seen this many restaurant openings since 2007, however, it also has had double the amount of restaurant closings compared to last year. There were 160 New York restaurant openings in 2014, and 82 closings compared to 42 last year. Tim Zagat, co-founder of the Zagat Survey explains his take on why some restaurants are failing and others are spreading, “The discrepancy between openings and closings is the largest since 2005…there are a lot of rent-caused closings that are maybe driving up the number. And that will affect in the industry in the coming years.”

Zagat goes on to explain that rents will always go up in New York City and if a restaurant has been open 10 years (it is common  there will be a large increase, which is what is happening all across the city and explains so many restaurants going out of business.  When restaurants have 10 year leases, which is fairly common, at the end of that lease landlords tend to increase the rent up to ‘market rates,’ which usually are just not feasible for the restaurant forcing them to close.

A few notable restaurants which are experiencing this phenomenon include Danny Meyer’s Union Square Cafe and WD-50 on the Lower East Side. Meyer comment in his New York Times Op-Ed, “It’s hard to come to grips with the notion that our success has, in part, contributed to our inability to remain in our neighborhood.” WD-50 will close end of this month to make way for a new building. To read more about the openings and closings of NYC restaurants, click here