Good morning and happy Wednesday. Well done on surviving those record-breaking cold days. It was over 20 degrees below normal and the coldest daytime temperatures since the 1890s! We’re back to more springlike weather today — and it could maybe get to 70 degrees tomorrow!

Yesterday was National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day — and our local retail stores, led by Fine and Dandy, had fun pointing out that Hell’s Kitchen is much more about Pop and Pop and Mom and Mom stores. “It’s kinda like ‘Queer Eye Retail’ where our sense of style, humor and innuendo all merge together for everyone gay or straight to enjoy. It’s an outward expression of our gay selves here at Delphinium Home!” said Michael Quinn. Read more…

NYPD is appealing for Hell’s Kitchen locals to help identify a woman caught on video breaking into a parked taxi cab on W37th Street last week. Read more…

What we’ve been reading

What’s happened to Mario Batali’s restaurants, five years on from the scandal. (New York Post)

Ideas around converting hotels to housing (even with $100m of funding) are not gaining traction in New York. (Bloomberg)

The old CC Rentals site on W37th Street has been sold on. (The Real Deal)

Fake reviews are a bad thing for restaurants — but what can they do about it? (Modern Restaurant Management)

Is the city taking the P about public bathroom installations? (THE CITY NYC)

Freeze Frame

Locals are being met with one more roadblock as a promotional display for the upcoming TV show Rat in the Kitchen takes over W50th Street — which out-of-town organizers called Restaurant Row. Read more…