The store moved to its current location in 1958, when Poll was in college. Now 81, he’s been going to work every day by taxi.
“When I go home at night, 6:30 or so, you just fly down Lexington, you can literally count the number of cars on your hands,” he said. “First Avenue, you have to be very careful crossing the avenue, now you can literally waltz across the avenue and do a dance in the middle.”
At Jeeves New York on East 65th Street, its laundering and dry cleaning business is down 77% as clients have fled to homes in Pound Ridge, New York, and Captiva Island, Florida. Still, the store picked up 10 bags of bed sheets Monday it normally wouldn’t have.
“Because their house staff isn’t coming in, they don’t know what to do with their sheets,” said owner Jerry Pozniak.
The service, which includes quarantining the laundry for 24 hours, isn’t cheap: $42 a sheet, $85 for a duvet cover and as much as $16 for pillow cases. On Wednesday, he started offering a 20% discount.
“It is exorbitant, but the types of sheets that we’re getting -- you’re looking at $3,000-$4,000 for set,” Pozniak said. “A lot of places do it on automated machinery. We’re using hand irons.”
Four of Juice Press’s Upper East Side stores are open. It started a grocery delivery business, selling kale chips and avocados, though its hottest item at the moment is its $8 Ginger Fireball, billed as an immunity booster.
“We sold 25,000 to 30,000 bottles since the crisis began,” Chief Executive Officer Michael Karsch said. The company bought a six-month supply of Peruvian ginger a few weeks ago and has been able to avoid raising the price, even as the cost of ginger has doubled since, he said.
One person swilling the stuff was Mark Mullett. He lives in the East 60s with his husband who works in finance. They have a home in Bridgehampton, but decided to stick it out in the city.
“We can walk to the grocery store, it’s right around the corner,” said Mullett, co-founder of Obe Fitness, an at-home exercise platform. “All of our working materials are here.”