Congestion pricing leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
The owner of a New York City diner name-dropped by Gov. Kathy Hochul said she never comes by anymore — but he’s afraid her controversial $9 congestion toll can put him out of business.
Hochul repeatedly insisted Thursday she talks to regular folks at diners who support the new fee for drivers in Manhattan below 60th Street but Comfort Diner owner Tarek Soliman said he hasn’t seen much of the politician after her 2022 gubernatorial race.
“After the election, she doesn’t come. She must have changed,” Soliman said.
“Before the election she comes all the time.”
Soliman, who lives in Queens, said Hochul’s driving fee is a financial burden that will discourage customers in the outer boroughs and New Jersey from stopping in for a meal.
“It’s going to affect the business for sure 100%,” he said.
“How much money do people have to pay to come to this diner to eat? No one is going to come.”
Other restaurant workers and customers slammed the fee — which Hochul paused amid backlash but officially resurrected Thursday with a $9 base toll — as an ill-conceived government overreach.
“That’s insane. Horrible,” said Eddie Prekpalj, 21, who commutes from the Bronx to Manhattan to install restaurant payment machines.
“I feel like the government’s job is to serve the people and they’re taking too much and giving back too little,” he said.
Hochul mentioned dinners three times at a press conference announcing the toll Thursday— saying “I spend more time in diners than probably anybody in this room” and a “woman I met in [a] diner told me, don’t assume that people don’t have to drive their vehicles.”
In June, Hochul told reporters that conversations she’s had with people at Big Apple diners had influenced her congestion pricing policies.
She went on to name-drop the Comfort Diner, the Townhouse Diner in Murray Hill and the Pershing Square cafe in Midtown as among her favorites.