Since 2011, two restaurants have opened and closed at 5 West Broughton St., but it looks as if the new Flying Monk Noodle Bar is going to stick around for a long time.
And that’s a good thing.
Flying Monk Noodle Bar is the latest concept from the Ele and the Chef Restaurant Collection. In theory, the noodle bar is competing with the company’s Chive Sea Bar & Lounge right across the street, but the menu, price point and atmosphere of the new spot are markedly different.
Just to get a sense of the menu, I ordered way more food than I really needed on my first trip to Flying Monk. (When you write a column like this, it’s easy to rationalize indulgence.)
The fresh-tasting Edamame Dumplings ($6.95) were almost enough for a meal by themselves. After that starter, I couldn’t even finish the Pho Combo ($9.95), a steaming bowl of broth with rice noodles, beef, bean sprouts, meatballs and fresh herbs.
In addition to the Vietnamese pho choices, the menu offers noodle soups from Laos, Japan and China and other noodle dishes from Korea, China, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Most of the items are priced between $9 and $11.
The narrow storefront felt a little cold in its two previous incarnations, but Flying Monk Noodle Bar has solved that problem with lovely furnishings and warm lighting. The tasteful combination of white, red and gold have sure brightened up the space.
Ele and Sean Tran’s other restaurants include The King and I, Ele Fine Fusion, Tangerine, Chive Sea Bar & Lounge and Fire Street Food, which has locations on Perry Street in Savannah and on King Street in Charleston.
On top of all that, we’re waiting for news about yet another venture from Ele and the Chef.
Ele and the Chef is not the only local restaurant group that has achieved success by opening restaurants with varying concepts throughout the area.
Live Oak Restaurant Group’s holdings include Fiddlers Crab House, Fiddlers Seafood, Molly McGuire’s, River House, Spanky’s on River Street, Dub’s, Tubby’s Seafood and Tubby’s Tankhouse. The Gaslight Group owns and operates B. Matthew’s Eatery, The 5 Spot, Blowin’ Smoke Southern Cantina and Abe’s on Lincoln.
There are some obvious advantages when a single corporation owns multiple restaurants, but such sustained success requires plenty of hard work.
Latest data show continued labor market improvement
In May, there were 1,416 initial claims for unemployment insurance in the Savannah metro area (Chatham, Bryan and Effingham counties). That was down 20.6 percent from the 1,416 claims in May 2013, according to numbers released last week by the Georgia Department of Labor.
The local decline wasn’t quite as impressive as the year-over-year statewide drop of 29.2 percent for May unemployment claims.
There were also significant over the year declines in unemployment claims in the Hinesville and Brunswick metro areas, as well as across the 10 counties that comprise Georgia’s Coastal Regional Commission.
According to the most recent estimates from the Georgia Department of Labor, we are seeing continued growth in the number of nonfarm payroll jobs.
Despite the loss of 700 government jobs over the past year, the Savannah metro area saw a 1.6 percent increase in payrolls between May 2013 and May 2014.
There were 14,400 local government jobs in the Savannah metro area in May, which is the exact same number that we had in May 2007, before the recession.
During both economic expansions and recessions, we typically see local government employment increase as the population increases. So by typical measures, we could have expected to have hundreds more local government jobs by 2014.
One could definitely argue that we had too many public sector jobs back in 2007, and one could argue that local governments in the metro area aren’t exactly practicing “austerity” if total employment is remaining the same.
But the regional population is growing, and there seems little doubt that we’ll soon be looking at ways to pay more teachers, public safety officers and other professionals.
By the way, as I’ve noted here before, we still haven’t seen a rebound in construction jobs. In May 2007, before the recession began, we had 10,000 payroll jobs in the sector that includes construction. In May 2014, we had 5,200.
City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.